Looking ahead: top three actions

The 2026 ETI shows that, while current system performance continues to improve, the conditions required to sustain progress are becoming less supportive. Energy systems must deliver clean, secure and affordable energy in a more volatile and constrained environment. The following three priorities provide a practical path to strengthen resilience, unblock delivery and restore investability.

1. Build resilience and security into energy transition strategies

Security is the foundation of transition progress and should be woven into energy system strategies. Embed energy security as a core design principle of the transition, not just a response to shocks.

Diversify across fuels, import partners, supply chains and critical minerals. Reduce single-source dependencies, build strategic reserves and secure alternative routes for essential inputs.
Stress-test energy systems against compound disruptions. Assess fuel adequacy, storage cover, firm capacity and demand-response readiness under scenarios that include simultaneous supply disruptions and extreme weather, and address the gaps.
Fast-track grid resilience and flexibility investments. Prioritize grid upgrades, storage at congested nodes, cross-border interconnections and digital system management to strengthen both physical and operational resilience.
Design generation portfolios for reliability. Pair variable renewables with firm dispatchable capacity to maintain system adequacy under rising demand.
Protect vulnerable consumers and manage demand. Deploy efficiency measures and demand-response programmes for large consumers to ease system pressure, alongside targeted support for vulnerable households that preserves price signals.

Box 12: Examples of building security and resilience

Example 1: The European Union’s REPowerEU¹⁰⁹ plan links energy security with lower import dependence, faster clean energy deployment, stronger energy efficiency and investment in infrastructure and interconnections, showing how a security response can also reinforce long-term transition readiness. Since its launch, REPowerEU has reduced the EU’s single-supplier gas dependence from 45% to below 12% and increased installed solar capacity by 50%,¹¹⁰ demonstrating that security-driven policy frameworks can accelerate deployment at scale.

Example 2: The Japan Organization for Metals and Energy Security (JOGMEC) demonstrates what sustained critical minerals resilience looks like in practice. Over a decade of government-backed stockpiling, upstream equity investments and bilateral supply agreements has made Japan one of the few advanced economies with strategic reserves across cobalt, nickel, lithium and rare earth elements.¹¹¹ One partnership, Lynas, supplies 90% of Japan’s rare earth element needs.¹¹² The ETI identifies this model of supply chain diversification as increasingly urgent.

2. Prioritize grids, flexibility and delivery capability to scale secure and clean energy

Delivery is the binding constraint for progress with streamlined planning and processes, unlocking significant potential. Rebalance the transition towards system delivery and integration to eliminate backlogs and streamline new interconnections.

Expand grids and fast-track connections. Triage connection queues by project readiness and system value and implement “connect and manage” approaches where curtailment risk is acceptable.
Streamline planning and permitting. Digitize application processes, coordinate environmental review and pre-designate infrastructure corridors to compress timelines.
Optimize existing infrastructure. Use dynamic line rating, advanced power flow controllers and other digital tools to increase transmission capacity without new construction.
Deploy flexibility at scale. Accelerate storage, demand response and flexible generation to stabilize systems under variable supply and rising demand.
Adapt market design to bridge gaps. Where grid expansion cannot keep pace, use locational pricing and flexibility mechanisms to allow clean energy investment to proceed ahead of full build-out.
Build the workforce. Scale training and recruitment of grid engineers, project managers and skilled technicians to match the infrastructure pipeline.

Box 13: Examples of system delivery

Example 1: India’s Green Energy Corridor¹¹³ programme was designed to strengthen transmission infrastructure and interregional connectivity to integrate renewable power at scale, illustrating how grid development becomes a precondition for clean energy expansion. Phase one has delivered over 9,100 kilometres of transmission lines connecting 20 GW of renewable capacity to the grid across eight states,¹¹⁴ with phase two now extending the network to integrate a further 13 GW.¹¹⁵

Example 2: The EU’s Clean Industrial Deal mobilizes over €100 billion for accelerating clean tech investment, with a €1.5 billion package to strengthen European grid components manufacturing and streamlined permitting for renewables, storage and grid infrastructure¹¹⁶ to address delivery and competitiveness simultaneously.

3. Restore investability, policy stability and direct capital to transition bottlenecks

Capital follows credibility, and without stable policy, regulatory consistency and bankable project pipelines, record global investment totals will not reach the markets where they are most needed. Reinforce the enabling environment for sustained progress.

Provide long-term regulatory visibility. Establish predictable frameworks for tariffs, procurement and grid access, with forward-looking auction calendars that give investors multi-year certainty.
De-risk underserved markets. Deploy public guarantees and blended finance to absorb early-stage risk where the cost of capital remains two to three times higher than in advanced economies.
Strengthen project pipelines. Standardize contracts, streamline approvals and invest in project preparation so viable projects reach financial close faster.
Sustain innovation funding. Scale R&D support for next-generation technologies, including long-duration storage, grid digitalization and industrial decarbonization, where the pipeline is slowing.

Box 14: Example of investability and readiness

Example: South Africa’s Just Energy Transition Investment Plan¹¹⁷ illustrates how domestic planning, international support and sector-level investment priorities can be combined to crowd in broader capital and support a more managed and investable transition pathway.

These three priorities are not separate agendas; they are one. Security shapes what gets built, delivery determines whether it works and investability decides where capital goes. Aligning all three is the central challenge of the next phase of the transition. Those who recognize this will sustain momentum.