The 2026 Energy Security Scenarios
Shell’s 2026 Energy Security Scenarios explore the forces reshaping the global energy system. How can nations navigate growing geopolitical tensions and how can the world power an AI revolution? The three scenarios – Archipelagos, Surge and Horizon – offer distinct pathways, exploring trade-offs between energy security, economic growth and addressing carbon emissions. Themes include increasing electrification, and the critical role of carbon and land-use management, with each theme having a different impact across different regions.
Shell publishes three scenarios: Archipelagos sees countries focusing on their own national security, the Surge scenario reflects AI’s transformative potential, and the Horizon scenario illustrates a normative pathway that limits warming to 1.5°C. The possibility of continued economic challenges, unresolved conflicts and geopolitical tensions required a revision of Shell’s Archipelagos scenario, first published in 2023.
The updated Archipelagos scenario sees slower global economic growth, a greater focus on energy security, and reduced support for emerging decarbonisation technologies, compared to Surge and Horizon. This results in higher fossil fuel use, slower growth in electrification, increased reliance on LNG, a renaissance of nuclear power, and about 10% more CO₂ emissions over the next two decades. Projected global warming reaches 2.5°C in 2100 compared to 2.2°C in the previous version of Archipelagos.
Across all scenarios, historical data has been updated in The 2026 Energy Security Scenarios.
Download The 2026 Energy Security Scenarios resources
The 2026 Energy Security Scenarios: Challenges to the transition
A report of our new 2026 Energy Security Scenarios
The underlying data
Examine the data that sits beneath our latest scenario thinking.
Five key messages
1. Electrification and renewables accelerate across all sectors and regions.
1. Electrification and renewables accelerate across all sectors and regions.
- In all scenarios, national energy systems continue to be electrified. Electric vehicle adoption continues to rise; buildings switch to heat pumps and heavy industry switches to electric furnaces.
- Solar photovoltaic drives this increased electrification, supported by wind in countries with higher latitudes. Integration of these intermittent sources requires storage, smart grids and system flexibility.
- Nuclear energy experiences a renaissance for energy security and with new technologies and new uses, for example in hard-to-abate sectors such as marine.
- Rising electrification boosts demand for critical minerals, making recycling and mineral-light technologies such as sodium-ion batteries and solid-state storage vital when supply chains tighten.
2. New technologies such as AI reshape the energy system and the global economy, changing both how energy is consumed and how it is produced.
2. New technologies such as AI reshape the energy system and the global economy, changing both how energy is consumed and how it is produced.
- This accelerates the development of modular energy systems and technology breakthroughs, and drives innovation in materials, storage, and fuels.
- New technologies like AI can also enable smarter electricity grids and lower the cost of carbon removal technologies like direct air capture – making decarbonisation more scalable. At the same time, AI significantly raises electricity demand through data centers and quantum computing.
3. Carbon management through carbon capture and storage (CCS), direct air capture (DAC) and managing land-use changes are essential.
3. Carbon management through carbon capture and storage (CCS), direct air capture (DAC) and managing land-use changes are essential.
- Peak energy system CO2 emissions are likely within a decade.
- CCS becomes a multi-gigatonne industry in all scenarios. A boom in AI could see faster, private-sector led deployment of CCS in the Surge scenario. Meanwhile, fast and strong policy-driven actions drive deployment in the Horizon scenario.
- Large-scale natural and engineered carbon removals – such as reforestation, bioenergy with CCS, and direct air capture with geological storage – are crucial for reaching net-zero emissions before 2100.
4. Low-carbon fuels are set to expand and diversify, complementing electrification and renewables. The scale and application of low-carbon fuels depend on policy ambition, technology breakthroughs and security priorities.
4. Low-carbon fuels are set to expand and diversify, complementing electrification and renewables. The scale and application of low-carbon fuels depend on policy ambition, technology breakthroughs and security priorities.
- Archipelagos shows that by 2070, global first-generation production is more than triple 2025 levels, considerably more than that seen in Horizon and Surge, where advanced biofuel production, such as cellulosic processing, dominates.
- Low-carbon fuels (biofuels, renewable hydrogen, and synthetic fuels) are crucial for aviation, marine and industry, yet their deployment speed and mix vary widely – from security-driven biofuel expansion in Archipelagos to an AI-powered synthetic fuel acceleration in Surge, and hydrogen-led deep decarbonisation in Horizon.
5. As renewable energy technologies reach scale, fossil fuels lose market share over time. While emissions will consequently begin to fall, the timing of reaching net-zero emissions is highly uncertain.
5. As renewable energy technologies reach scale, fossil fuels lose market share over time. While emissions will consequently begin to fall, the timing of reaching net-zero emissions is highly uncertain.
- In all scenarios, coal is hard to dislodge in the global energy system, but peak coal use before 2030 is common across the scenarios. Oil demand grows modestly but is in decline after 2040, and natural gas use could grow by 10% into the 2040s. LNG grows to about 550 mtpa by the end of the decade with a similar trajectory in all scenarios. After that the LNG demand in the scenarios diverge significantly as different drivers take hold.
- The 2026 Energy Security Scenarios indicate net-zero CO2 emissions is likely, but timing is uncertain. Plausible scenarios indicate a near-term overshoot of the 1.5°C goal. By focusing on carbon removal technologies and practices, the world could achieve less than ~2°C of warming by the end of the century.
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Definitions and Cautionary note
Definitions and Cautionary note
WARNING - UNCERTAINTIES AHEAD: The 2026 Energy Security Scenarios.
Shell’s scenarios are not intended to be projections or forecasts of the future. Shell’s scenarios are not Shell’s strategy or business plan, nor are they intended to be predictions of likely future events or outcomes, and investors should not rely on them when making an investment decision with regard to Shell plc securities.
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