If 2024 was the year of elections across the globe, and 2025 the year of reckoning with their policy consequences, then 2026 is shaping up to be the year of hard choices about how the world is powered.
Amid accelerating electrification, surging demand from data centers and digital infrastructure, and persistent concerns about affordability, reliability, and emissions, policymakers and markets alike face an increasingly clear question: which energy sources can deliver power at scale—reliably, competitively, and sustainably?
In their essays, IOA’s Non-Resident Fellows grapple with a range of pressing issues, including market design and regulatory reform, the competitiveness of clean energy technologies, the role of fossil fuels in a transitioning system, the growing electricity demand driven by digitalization, and the regional realities shaping power sector outcomes from North America to South America. Together, these contributions reflect a shared recognition that the energy transition is entering a phase defined less by ambition alone and more by implementation, trade-offs, and system-level constraints.
Powering 2026 will serve as a useful reference to help inform senior policymakers, industry leaders, investors, and regulators from across the Americas and beyond as they examine how energy systems are adapting to these pressures.
We are also pleased to include contributions from graduate students at the UC San Diego School of Global Policy & Strategy and participants in IOA’s Future Energy Leaders Initiative (FELI).
What you will find in the report
- An assessment of why 2026 marks a turning point from energy ambition to implementation and hard trade-offs.
- Analysis of accelerating electrification and surging electricity demand driven by data centers and digital infrastructure.
- Perspectives on market design, regulatory reform, and their role in enabling reliable and affordable power at scale.
- An evaluation of the competitiveness and limitations of clean energy technologies in today’s power systems.
- Examination of the evolving role of fossil fuels within a transitioning and increasingly constrained energy system.
- Regional insights into how power sector realities differ across North America, South America, and other global markets.
- Contributions from IOA Non-Resident Fellows and emerging voices from UC San Diego and the Future Energy Leaders Initiative.
Key Questions
- Why is 2026 emerging as a year of hard choices for global energy systems?
- Which energy sources can reliably deliver power at scale while balancing affordability, reliability, and emissions?
- How is rising electricity demand from data centers and digitalization reshaping power system planning?
- What market design and regulatory reforms are needed to support large-scale electrification?
- How competitive are clean energy technologies under current system and cost constraints?
- What role will fossil fuels continue to play during the energy transition?
- How do regional power sector realities differ across the Americas and influence energy outcomes?
- What do these dynamics mean for policymakers, investors, regulators, and industry leaders?