The tale of the clean energy transition is long and winding — and unfortunately, we here at Canary Media don’t have a crystal ball to tell you exactly what’s coming next.

But we can let you in on the big storylines our reporters and editors are keeping a close eye on as we head into 2026. Here’s the list, covering everything from companies on the cusp of tech breakthroughs to policy debates that are hitting a boiling point.

The decoupling of vibes from progress

Things are getting messy. President Donald Trump has gutted the only significant decarbonization law the U.S. ever managed to pass. Blue-state governors are backsliding on clean energy goals and easing up on fossil fuels under the cover of affordability. Oil and gas companies have dropped the pretense of caring about climate. ESG is dead. The ​“climate hawk” is dead. The words ​“pragmatism” and ​“realism” have become as inescapable in climate policy discourse as reminders of planetary warming are in the weather reports.

Yes, the climate conversation has changed dramatically over the last year, at least in the Western world. But the techno-economic trends that are driving decarbonization forward have not. Clean energy — mostly solar — is still being built at a blistering pace. EVs are beginning to run gas cars off the road. China’s emissions could be starting to decline. The world is on track for far less warming than it was when the Paris Agreement was signed a decade ago, and we’re still in the early innings of clean energy deployment.

In 2026, I’ll be watching this dissonance between decarbonization vibes and reality. Will politicians, companies, and others grow increasingly quiet on climate, all while the clean energy revolution speaks louder and louder? — Dan McCarthy, senior editor

The rise of virtual power plants

What do you do when you can’t build actual power plants fast enough to keep the lights on and the air conditioners humming? You turn to virtual power plants.

Utilities and regulators have in recent years begun to embrace these networks of rooftop solar panels, backup batteries, plugged-in electric vehicles, smart thermostats, remote-controllable water heaters, and other ​“distributed energy resources” in homes and businesses. By controlling this equipment to lower electricity demand and provide energy to the grid, utilities can replicate much of the value of a traditional, centralized power plant.

Now, the AI boom is forcing decision-makers to take VPPs even more seriously. Gigawatts of planned data centers are pushing up already high and rising utility bills. Equipment shortages are making it nearly impossible to quickly build gas plants, while interconnection bottlenecks are preventing lots of utility-scale renewables from coming online. And the risks of overbuilding to serve what could end up being an AI bubble are rising.

VPPs could help solve all those problems by enlisting energy tech that people are already buying. What I’m eyeing in 2026 is whether utilities, grid operators, and the state and federal regulators overseeing them put their weight behind the VPP build-out. — Jeff St. John, chief reporter and policy specialist

2026 is a threshold year for the American nuclear industry as it strives to lay the foundation for an unprecedented scale-up of atomic energy in the U.S. — quadrupling nuclear generating capacity by 2050, as per President Trump’s executive order.

The operators of the Palisades and Three Mile Island plants are pledging 2026 and 2027 restart dates for those mothballed reactors. Additional Trump executive orders are aiming for three advanced nuclear startups to achieve criticality in 2026. (One reactor has already staked that claim.)

Over the coming months, I’ll be tracking whether the industry keeps its bold promise of power-plant restarts and advanced reactor development. We’ll be reporting on the crop of nuclear startups and whether they can deliver on their audacious claims. And we’ll be watching whether the U.S. can start building nuclear reactors at scale.

If those plans are backed by sufficient capital and follow-through, they could restore some of the country’s lost atomic luster. If not, the U.S will have ceded its global nuclear leadership to China and Russia. — Eric Wesoff, executive director

The wind-energy win brewing in New England’s far north

Northernmost Maine has strong winds and lots of open space. But renewable energy developers have not yet managed to capitalize on these conditions to build substantial onshore wind farms, even though the idea has been floating around the state since at least 2008. Last year, Maine energy officials and regional grid operator ISO New England kick-started yet another effort to get turbines spinning up north with requests for proposals for both generation and transmission lines to carry the power south to the rest of the region.

I’ll be watching closely for a few reasons: First, the New England grid needs more power supply as the climate-conscious states it serves make moves to electrify buildings and transportation, and 1,200 megawatts of onshore wind would certainly help. Also, if the plan succeeds, it could offer valuable lessons about the economics of developing renewable energy in the face of federal hostility, which, I think we can all agree, is unlikely to abate anytime soon. — Sarah Shemkus, Northeast reporter

The financial case for electric buildings

As voters worry about the cost-of-living crisis, all-electric new buildings could help keep mortgage payments and energy bills down.

Though exact savings depend on local energy costs, a growing number of analyses have found that all-electric new construction makes financial sense. Building a home with only an electric system is often a simpler feat than building it with both electricity and gas. In some cases, all-electric homes can save people thousands of dollars over the lifetime of super-efficient electric appliances, such as heat pumps and heat-pump water heaters. Even retrofitting an existing structure with these technologies can pay off in the long term, especially in areas with favorable electricity rates.

Yet policymakers who once pushed ambitious electrification standards have been pulling back. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) waived her city’s requirement that new buildings be all-electric after last year’s catastrophic wildfires, then repealed it completely. In June, air-quality regulators in Southern California punted a plan that would have incentivized a gradual phasedown of gas furnaces and water heaters sold in the region. And New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) delayed her state’s first-in-the-nation all-electric building code, which would have taken effect on Dec. 31, 2025.

In 2026, I want to see if politicians and regulators will recognize that electrification can in fact boost affordability, especially in newly built homes. — Alison F. Takemura, staff writer

The geothermal breakthrough on the horizon

Geothermal energy startups have raised huge sums of money in recent months and years to develop next-generation technologies for harnessing Earth’s heat. But so far, the companies have delivered relatively little carbon-free electricity to the grid.

That will change this year, when Fervo Energy flips the switch on its Cape Station facility in Utah. The startup is building an ​“enhanced geothermal system” that uses fracking techniques to create geothermal reservoirs in hard, impermeable rocks. The first 100 megawatts (of an eventual 500 MW) are slated to go online in October, which would make Cape Station the biggest project of its kind to connect to the grid worldwide.

The development will send ​“a powerful signal that next-generation geothermal is moving from promise to commercial reality,” said Jeremy O’Brien of geoscience software company Seequent. ​“We expect this milestone to accelerate both investor interest and government support globally.”

Fervo isn’t alone in its ambitions. The company Eavor will start working this spring to expand its first-of-a-kind geothermal project in Germany, and firms like Sage Geosystems, Quaise, XGS, and Zanskar are accelerating efforts to satisfy demand for clean, around-the-clock power. I’ll be watching closely to see whether 2026 proves to be the pivotal year the industry is hoping for. — Maria Gallucci, senior reporter

The tug-of-war over clean energy in Ohio

Ohio, where I report from, has for years been a hotbed for dark money and a testing ground for national efforts to hinder action on climate change. State lawmakers and regulators continue to throw up obstacles to renewable energy development, while giving preference to new fossil-fueled power plants. One pending bill, for example, calls for energy permitting decisions to make sure facilities ​“employ affordable, reliable, and clean energy sources,” with ​“reliable” meaning energy that’s available at all times and ​“clean” defined to include natural gas. I’ll keep investigating those efforts in 2026 to hold the people in power accountable as the public struggles with rising energy costs and worsening climate change impacts.

But it’s not all bad news in the Buckeye State, as some communities rally in support of clean energy. One story I’m particularly excited to cover is a May referendum that will give voters the chance to overturn a local solar and wind ban covering most of their county — an approach that could take off elsewhere in Ohio and in other states that allow local restrictions on renewable power. — Kathiann M. Kowalski, contributing reporter based in Ohio

The AI boom’s battery awakening

2026 will be the year we start seeing batteries bridge the gap between data centers’ sky-high power demand and what the U.S. grid can actually deliver.

A well-placed battery system can secure electricity for AI computing hubs in the relatively few hours each year when the grid can’t supply them. That can allow data centers to get built far sooner than if they waited for pricey and time-consuming power network upgrades.

Storage developers are reporting a frenzy of interest in such projects, but these typically are shrouded in secrecy. I recently reported on the first publicly confirmed project of this kind, which entered construction in Oregon for Aligned Data Centers and should start operating in 2026. Utility Portland General Electric will own that one and use it to guarantee power a few years earlier than it could have with conventional grid upgrades.

What I found most intriguing is that the data center developer is paying for this smart grid upgrade. This arrangement lays out a rare positive vision for the nation’s energy future: The companies that stand to make boatloads of money on data centers could fund grid upgrades that benefit everyone, as opposed to the general public subsidizing those upgrades to pad the profits of AI ventures. In the year ahead, I’ll be tracking the proliferation of batteries for data centers, and what they mean for consumers’ energy bills. — Julian Spector, senior reporter

The fate of coal in the Midwest

Over the past decade, scores of Midwestern coal plants have closed, as environmental regulations kicked in and coal-fired generation became more expensive than natural gas or renewables.

Now, the tables could be turning again.

Utilities are pushing back retirement dates for coal plants as electricity-demand forecasts increase exponentially due to proposed data centers — many of which may never get built. The Trump administration is ordering plants on the brink of closure to stay open and easing up on rules around pollution from coal power. Indiana’s Republican Gov. Mike Braun issued an executive order last spring calling for coal plant ​“life extensions,” and Illinois experts are researching controversial ​“clean coal technologies,” including at a demonstration carbon-capture plant that went online in 2024.

Coal is embedded in the culture in these states, and it’s highly political, as I’ve heard many times from elected officials, grassroots activists, and coal miners. In 2026, I’ll be closely tracking how this campaign to revive coal progresses and what it means on the ground in Midwest communities where it is burned and mined. After all, coal isn’t just an increasingly expensive way to generate electricity; it’s also incredibly polluting. — Kari Lydersen, contributing reporter based in Illinois

The big push for offshore wind in Canada

The future of America’s offshore wind sector may well be in Canada — a country prepping its first projects and willing to share power generated from its frigid ocean breezes with U.S. states just across the border.

Thanks to President Trump’s ire, it’s likely that no new offshore wind farms will be completed in the U.S. until 2035, save for the five projects already being built, BloombergNEF predicted in early December. Even those projects aren’t guaranteed, a fact underscored by the 90-day pause on wind farm construction issued Dec. 22 by the Interior Department.

But Northeast U.S. states aren’t giving up on the renewable energy source. Massachusetts is exploring sourcing offshore wind power from Canada, with Democratic Gov. Maura Healey meeting with Nova Scotia’s premier last month to discuss partnering on energy needs. Maine also seems interested.

In 2026, I’ll be keeping a close eye on whether these deals materialize — and what they mean for North America’s offshore wind workforce and supply chain, which grew under the Biden administration and could otherwise wither away under Trump 2.0. — Clare Fieseler, reporter

The tale of the clean energy transition is long and winding — and unfortunately, we here at Canary Media don’t have a crystal ball to tell you exactly what’s coming next.

But we can let you in on the big storylines our reporters and editors are keeping a close eye on as we head into 2026. Here’s the list, covering everything from companies on the cusp of tech breakthroughs to policy debates that are hitting a boiling point.

The decoupling of vibes from progress

Things are getting messy. President Donald Trump has gutted the only significant decarbonization law the U.S. ever managed to pass. Blue-state governors are backsliding on clean energy goals and easing up on fossil fuels under the cover of affordability. Oil and gas companies have dropped the pretense of caring about climate. ESG is dead. The ​“climate hawk” is dead. The words ​“pragmatism” and ​“realism” have become as inescapable in climate policy discourse as reminders of planetary warming are in the weather reports.

Yes, the climate conversation has changed dramatically over the last year, at least in the Western world. But the techno-economic trends that are driving decarbonization forward have not. Clean energy — mostly solar — is still being built at a blistering pace. EVs are beginning to run gas cars off the road. China’s emissions could be starting to decline. The world is on track for far less warming than it was when the Paris Agreement was signed a decade ago, and we’re still in the early innings of clean energy deployment.

In 2026, I’ll be watching this dissonance between decarbonization vibes and reality. Will politicians, companies, and others grow increasingly quiet on climate, all while the clean energy revolution speaks louder and louder? — Dan McCarthy, senior editor

The rise of virtual power plants

What do you do when you can’t build actual power plants fast enough to keep the lights on and the air conditioners humming? You turn to virtual power plants.

Utilities and regulators have in recent years begun to embrace these networks of rooftop solar panels, backup batteries, plugged-in electric vehicles, smart thermostats, remote-controllable water heaters, and other ​“distributed energy resources” in homes and businesses. By controlling this equipment to lower electricity demand and provide energy to the grid, utilities can replicate much of the value of a traditional, centralized power plant.

Now, the AI boom is forcing decision-makers to take VPPs even more seriously. Gigawatts of planned data centers are pushing up already high and rising utility bills. Equipment shortages are making it nearly impossible to quickly build gas plants, while interconnection bottlenecks are preventing lots of utility-scale renewables from coming online. And the risks of overbuilding to serve what could end up being an AI bubble are rising.

VPPs could help solve all those problems by enlisting energy tech that people are already buying. What I’m eyeing in 2026 is whether utilities, grid operators, and the state and federal regulators overseeing them put their weight behind the VPP build-out. — Jeff St. John, chief reporter and policy specialist

2026 is a threshold year for the American nuclear industry as it strives to lay the foundation for an unprecedented scale-up of atomic energy in the U.S. — quadrupling nuclear generating capacity by 2050, as per President Trump’s executive order.

The operators of the Palisades and Three Mile Island plants are pledging 2026 and 2027 restart dates for those mothballed reactors. Additional Trump executive orders are aiming for three advanced nuclear startups to achieve criticality in 2026. (One reactor has already staked that claim.)

Over the coming months, I’ll be tracking whether the industry keeps its bold promise of power-plant restarts and advanced reactor development. We’ll be reporting on the crop of nuclear startups and whether they can deliver on their audacious claims. And we’ll be watching whether the U.S. can start building nuclear reactors at scale.

If those plans are backed by sufficient capital and follow-through, they could restore some of the country’s lost atomic luster. If not, the U.S will have ceded its global nuclear leadership to China and Russia. — Eric Wesoff, executive director

The wind-energy win brewing in New England’s far north

Northernmost Maine has strong winds and lots of open space. But renewable energy developers have not yet managed to capitalize on these conditions to build substantial onshore wind farms, even though the idea has been floating around the state since at least 2008. Last year, Maine energy officials and regional grid operator ISO New England kick-started yet another effort to get turbines spinning up north with requests for proposals for both generation and transmission lines to carry the power south to the rest of the region.

I’ll be watching closely for a few reasons: First, the New England grid needs more power supply as the climate-conscious states it serves make moves to electrify buildings and transportation, and 1,200 megawatts of onshore wind would certainly help. Also, if the plan succeeds, it could offer valuable lessons about the economics of developing renewable energy in the face of federal hostility, which, I think we can all agree, is unlikely to abate anytime soon. — Sarah Shemkus, Northeast reporter

The financial case for electric buildings

As voters worry about the cost-of-living crisis, all-electric new buildings could help keep mortgage payments and energy bills down.

Though exact savings depend on local energy costs, a growing number of analyses have found that all-electric new construction makes financial sense. Building a home with only an electric system is often a simpler feat than building it with both electricity and gas. In some cases, all-electric homes can save people thousands of dollars over the lifetime of super-efficient electric appliances, such as heat pumps and heat-pump water heaters. Even retrofitting an existing structure with these technologies can pay off in the long term, especially in areas with favorable electricity rates.

Yet policymakers who once pushed ambitious electrification standards have been pulling back. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass (D) waived her city’s requirement that new buildings be all-electric after last year’s catastrophic wildfires, then repealed it completely. In June, air-quality regulators in Southern California punted a plan that would have incentivized a gradual phasedown of gas furnaces and water heaters sold in the region. And New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) delayed her state’s first-in-the-nation all-electric building code, which would have taken effect on Dec. 31, 2025.

In 2026, I want to see if politicians and regulators will recognize that electrification can in fact boost affordability, especially in newly built homes. — Alison F. Takemura, staff writer

The geothermal breakthrough on the horizon

Geothermal energy startups have raised huge sums of money in recent months and years to develop next-generation technologies for harnessing Earth’s heat. But so far, the companies have delivered relatively little carbon-free electricity to the grid.

That will change this year, when Fervo Energy flips the switch on its Cape Station facility in Utah. The startup is building an ​“enhanced geothermal system” that uses fracking techniques to create geothermal reservoirs in hard, impermeable rocks. The first 100 megawatts (of an eventual 500 MW) are slated to go online in October, which would make Cape Station the biggest project of its kind to connect to the grid worldwide.

The development will send ​“a powerful signal that next-generation geothermal is moving from promise to commercial reality,” said Jeremy O’Brien of geoscience software company Seequent. ​“We expect this milestone to accelerate both investor interest and government support globally.”

Fervo isn’t alone in its ambitions. The company Eavor will start working this spring to expand its first-of-a-kind geothermal project in Germany, and firms like Sage Geosystems, Quaise, XGS, and Zanskar are accelerating efforts to satisfy demand for clean, around-the-clock power. I’ll be watching closely to see whether 2026 proves to be the pivotal year the industry is hoping for. — Maria Gallucci, senior reporter

The tug-of-war over clean energy in Ohio

Ohio, where I report from, has for years been a hotbed for dark money and a testing ground for national efforts to hinder action on climate change. State lawmakers and regulators continue to throw up obstacles to renewable energy development, while giving preference to new fossil-fueled power plants. One pending bill, for example, calls for energy permitting decisions to make sure facilities ​“employ affordable, reliable, and clean energy sources,” with ​“reliable” meaning energy that’s available at all times and ​“clean” defined to include natural gas. I’ll keep investigating those efforts in 2026 to hold the people in power accountable as the public struggles with rising energy costs and worsening climate change impacts.

But it’s not all bad news in the Buckeye State, as some communities rally in support of clean energy. One story I’m particularly excited to cover is a May referendum that will give voters the chance to overturn a local solar and wind ban covering most of their county — an approach that could take off elsewhere in Ohio and in other states that allow local restrictions on renewable power. — Kathiann M. Kowalski, contributing reporter based in Ohio

The AI boom’s battery awakening

2026 will be the year we start seeing batteries bridge the gap between data centers’ sky-high power demand and what the U.S. grid can actually deliver.

A well-placed battery system can secure electricity for AI computing hubs in the relatively few hours each year when the grid can’t supply them. That can allow data centers to get built far sooner than if they waited for pricey and time-consuming power network upgrades.

Storage developers are reporting a frenzy of interest in such projects, but these typically are shrouded in secrecy. I recently reported on the first publicly confirmed project of this kind, which entered construction in Oregon for Aligned Data Centers and should start operating in 2026. Utility Portland General Electric will own that one and use it to guarantee power a few years earlier than it could have with conventional grid upgrades.

What I found most intriguing is that the data center developer is paying for this smart grid upgrade. This arrangement lays out a rare positive vision for the nation’s energy future: The companies that stand to make boatloads of money on data centers could fund grid upgrades that benefit everyone, as opposed to the general public subsidizing those upgrades to pad the profits of AI ventures. In the year ahead, I’ll be tracking the proliferation of batteries for data centers, and what they mean for consumers’ energy bills. — Julian Spector, senior reporter

The fate of coal in the Midwest

Over the past decade, scores of Midwestern coal plants have closed, as environmental regulations kicked in and coal-fired generation became more expensive than natural gas or renewables.

Now, the tables could be turning again.

Utilities are pushing back retirement dates for coal plants as electricity-demand forecasts increase exponentially due to proposed data centers — many of which may never get built. The Trump administration is ordering plants on the brink of closure to stay open and easing up on rules around pollution from coal power. Indiana’s Republican Gov. Mike Braun issued an executive order last spring calling for coal plant ​“life extensions,” and Illinois experts are researching controversial ​“clean coal technologies,” including at a demonstration carbon-capture plant that went online in 2024.

Coal is embedded in the culture in these states, and it’s highly political, as I’ve heard many times from elected officials, grassroots activists, and coal miners. In 2026, I’ll be closely tracking how this campaign to revive coal progresses and what it means on the ground in Midwest communities where it is burned and mined. After all, coal isn’t just an increasingly expensive way to generate electricity; it’s also incredibly polluting. — Kari Lydersen, contributing reporter based in Illinois

The big push for offshore wind in Canada

The future of America’s offshore wind sector may well be in Canada — a country prepping its first projects and willing to share power generated from its frigid ocean breezes with U.S. states just across the border.

Thanks to President Trump’s ire, it’s likely that no new offshore wind farms will be completed in the U.S. until 2035, save for the five projects already being built, BloombergNEF predicted in early December. Even those projects aren’t guaranteed, a fact underscored by the 90-day pause on wind farm construction issued Dec. 22 by the Interior Department.

But Northeast U.S. states aren’t giving up on the renewable energy source. Massachusetts is exploring sourcing offshore wind power from Canada, with Democratic Gov. Maura Healey meeting with Nova Scotia’s premier last month to discuss partnering on energy needs. Maine also seems interested.

In 2026, I’ll be keeping a close eye on whether these deals materialize — and what they mean for North America’s offshore wind workforce and supply chain, which grew under the Biden administration and could otherwise wither away under Trump 2.0. — Clare Fieseler, reporter