Energy · Issue 01
2,500 gigawatts waiting for a wire
The IEA’s 2026 electricity report puts more than 2,500 GW of projects — renewables, batteries, data centres — in grid connection queues. The world spends $400 billion a year on grids and $1 trillion on generation. That is the distribution bottleneck.
- Grids
- Generation
- Projects stalled in grid queues, 2026
- 2,500 GW
- Annual grid investment, now
- $400bn
- Lift needed by 2030
- +50%
- Lead time for a large transformer
- 4 years
The queue is the product
Electricity 2026 is the print: more than 2,500 GW of projects — solar, wind, storage, and large loads such as data centres — sit in connection queues worldwide. Complementary measures (non-firm connections, dynamic line rating, reconductoring) could free 1,200–1,600 GW of the advanced-stage pile. That is an admission. The binding constraint is no longer a module or a turbine. It is a wire, a transformer, and a permission. Permitting still takes 5–15 years; a data centre takes 1–3. Prices for key grid kit have nearly doubled in five years. Large transformers: up to four years to secure.
A trillion for generation, four hundred for the grid
World Energy Investment 2025: the world now spends about $400 billion a year on grids and about $1 trillion on generation. Electricity as a whole is $1.5 trillion, 50% more than oil, gas and coal combined. Meeting demand through 2030 wants grid spend up another 50%. Pair this with The power behind intelligence and The copper bind. Solar can be bolted down in months. The substation cannot. That mismatch is why queues exist, and why ‘more renewables’ as a slogan is not an investing thesis.
The long view is distribution, not generation
Every general-purpose technology eventually becomes a distribution story. Steam needed rails. The internet needed fibre. Intelligence needs a bay at a substation. Own the things with four-year lead times — transformers, HVDC cable, switchgear, the utilities that can actually interconnect — and treat merchant generation without a queue position as inventory. Grid-enhancing software is the cheap unlock; copper and steel are the dear one. Both will be bought.
Investing lens
Horizon 7–20 years · Educational, not advice
The energy transition is now a distribution buildout. Own transformers, cable, interconnection-advantaged utilities and the copper that feeds them. Do not own a solar farm that is still in a queue.
Where the map points
- Transformer, cable and switchgear manufacturers with a backlog
- Transmission and distribution utilities with a visible interconnect book
- Grid-enhancing software and reconductoring
- Avoid generation developers whose offtake is a press release
What can break it
- Permitting reform that actually empties the queue
- A capex pause at the hyperscalers
- Overbuild of kit after a four-year order binge
CHART does not recommend securities, funds or trades. Figures can be revised by their publishers. Do your own research and consider regulated advice before allocating capital.
Sources
Every headline number traces to a named publisher. Contextual sources inform the essay, not the key stat.
- 01PrimaryInternational Energy Agency2026Electricity 2026 — Executive summary
More than 2,500 GW of projects stalled in grid queues (renewables, storage, large loads). Grid investment ~$400bn/yr; +50% needed by 2030. Global electricity demand +3% in 2025; +3.6%/yr 2026–2030.
- 02CorroboratedInternational Energy Agency2026Grids — Electricity 2026
Connection queues at record levels. Permitting 5–15 years vs 1–3 years for a data centre. Component prices nearly doubled in five years.
- 03PrimaryInternational Energy Agency2025World Energy Investment 2025 — Executive summary
Energy investment $3.3tn in 2025. Electricity sector $1.5tn. Grids ~$400bn vs ~$1tn on generation. Clean $2.2tn vs fossil $1.1tn.
- 04CorroboratedInternational Energy Agency2025Building the Future Transmission Grid — Executive summary
Large power transformers: up to four years to secure. Cables 2–3 years. Lead times almost doubled since 2021. Transformer prices +75% since 2019.
Keep reading
The power behind intelligence
Data centres used 485 TWh in 2025. The IEA’s base case still nearly doubles that by 2030 — and AI sites are growing three times as fast as the rest.
485 TWh
Data-centre electricity, 2025
The copper bind
Electrification, grids and data centres all drink copper. The IEA’s 2025 outlook still sees a 30% mined-supply gap by 2035.
30%
Implied copper supply shortfall by 2035
The century-long reign of coal is ending
In 2025, renewable electricity generated more power than coal for the first time in the modern era. Solar did most of the work.
33.8%
Renewables share of world electricity, 2025
Batteries now outbuild the gas turbine
The world added 108 GW of batteries in 2025 — more new capacity than gas plants managed in their best year. China installed most of it.
108 GW
Battery storage added in 2025