World Energy Trilemma report 2026

Full report can be downloaded for free from worldenergy.org/publications

Executive Summary

A NEW ERA OF ENERGY FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET IN A SYSTEM UNDER STRAIN

Today’s world energy leadership landscape is increasingly fragmented, and polarised, and the digitalisation of the energy system is resulting in an abundance of data but a shortage of guidance for decision-making. Rather than depending on more data to solve problems, policymakers need innovative approaches and collaborative learning in order to keep pace with technology development in a faster and more fundamentally shifting world.  
This is a pivotal moment in world energy leadership. To meet this challenge, the World Energy Trilemma work is evolving beyond an annual static index into a dialogue and learning process to support decision-making in the new context of intelligent systems economies and emerging energy shocks. 

INSTABILITY IS CHALLENGING; BALANCE IS ASPIRATIONAL 

Progressing world energy leadership in an era of energy for people and planet cannot be achieved with a one-size-fits-all or single-issue agenda. Instead, it requires managing the connected challenges of energy security, equity, and environmental sustainability. Questions of balance are also geopolitical. How to maintain the current world energy system, whilst building a new one? How to deliver global climate change commitments while also providing energy security, affordability and resilience? How to engage in long-term planning and investments in the midst of sudden reversals in national energy policy?  

INTER-OPERABILITY IS EMERGING AS THE CRITICAL STRATEGIC CAPABILITY FOR THE NEXT CENTURY 

Balance now involves the much harder work of delivering clean, resilient, affordable, productive energy services to billions more people and increasingly diverse energy uses and users amidst geopolitical uncertainty, more frequent and severe extreme weather events, and an accelerating pace of digital innovation. In this context, interoperability has become a strategic leadership capability. 

THE NEW SHAPE OF THE WORLD ENERGY SYSTEM 

This context demands a new leadership discipline of continually reassessing energy security, equity and environmental sustainability as circumstances change. In practical terms, this means adding new generation and connecting it with grids, storage, flexible demand, markets and institutions—while enabling different technologies and national pathways to work together. Integration makes the parts of an energy system work as a whole; interoperability enables different systems and pathways to work together. We call this “Rebalancing”

REBALANCING IS A COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP CAPABILITY THAT NEEDS TO BE WIDELY PRACTISED 

This capability matters because the decisions now facing energy leaders carry real cost – for identifiable communities, industries, and voters today, and, where those decisions are deferred, for future generations. Rebalancing is a practice exercised by individual leaders, developed collectively across the Council’s community, and built into institutions themselves.