For years, electrification, the replacement of technologies that run on fossil fuels with electric alternatives, was attacked as part of a “woke agenda”—a climate solution cast as an expensive mandate on consumers, whether in the form of electric vehicles (EVs), heat pumps, or electric stoves.
That is now changing. Recent energy supply disruptions and the rapid growth in data centers for artificial intelligence (AI), cryptocurrency mining, electric heating, cooling, and transport are driving electricity demand and shifting the narrative on electrification in the United States and globally.
In February 2026, the International Energy Agency (IEA) declared the arrival of the “Age of Electricity,” forecasting that annual additions to electricity demand over the next five years will be 50 percent larger than the average annual additions of the previous decade. A few months later, Turkey announced its COP31 presidency’s agenda, which includes a target of raising the global share of electricity in final energy demand from 21 percent to 35 percent by 2035. In July 2026, the European Commission, Canada, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United Kingdom joined forces with the Brazilian, Turkish, Australian, and Ethiopian COP presidencies to launch a global campaign to accelerate economy-wide electrification. The European Union also launched its own plan to double the share of electricity in final energy consumption in the Union to 46 percent by 2040. Even with the significant rollback of climate rules in the United States, the push for electrification has kept growing under the banners of grid resilience, reindustrialization, and national security, and political concerns from left, right, and center are now fading.
The pivot from a green “luxury” to a national security shield
So, what changed? The economic case for electrification has strengthened, with new sources of electricity demand driving grid investments from which electrification can benefit.
Proponents of electrification originally used climate- and emissions-focused metrics to advocate for alternative technologies. This approach triggered political pushback and “greenlash” among consumers who felt they were being forced to buy expensive technologies to fulfill elitist abstract targets. Notably, even climate advocates have long debated the shortcomings of electrification as a cross-sectoral solution, instead citing concerns over supply chain concentration, exposure to cyberattacks, and thermodynamic boundaries in high-heat industrial applications.
Over the last couple of years, the narrative changed from saving the planet to saving money and achieving energy security. By reducing reliance on volatile global energy commodities and investing in localized infrastructure assets, electrification managed to cross the political divide.
This was amplified following US-Israel attacks on Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which triggered the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. While fossil fuel importers paid an extra $330 billion for seaborne petroleum products in the six months following the attacks, recent investments in clean power generation saved importing countries almost $36 billion in avoided fossil fuel imports.
Efficiency gains
Unlike political campaigns, the laws of physics do not change with political agendas. Fossil fuel systems rely on combustion to turn primary energy into “exergy,” useful work. Thermal cycles of such fuels are bound by thermodynamic limits that inevitably lose some of this energy as waste heat. In contrast, electric systems are far more efficient in converting most of the incoming energy into useful work.
For example, EVs convert over 77 percent of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12 percent to 30 percent of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels. For buildings, heat pumps are three to four times more efficient than gas boilers.
During energy shocks, this efficiency is directly turned into cost savings. Those economic gains have helped make electrification a business imperative.
AI and record-breaking consumption
The rapid expansion of AI has catalyzed surging global electricity demand. The IEA estimates that global data center electricity consumption will more than double by 2030, reaching around 945 terawatt-hours, with AI the most significant driver. This is slightly more than the total electricity consumption of Japan, the world’s fourth-largest economy.
The problem is that the computing needs of AI are increasing exponentially, while grid capacity is growing at a linear pace. Meeting that demand will need not just additional generation capacity, but also expanded transmission lines, upgraded distribution transformers, enhanced substation capacity, and scaled long-duration energy storage technologies.
This creates an opportunity for electrification to “free ride” on investments made for other loads, including AI-driven electricity demand. Upgrading a substation to accommodate a large-scale data center can also increase local capacity for EV charging and household conversions to heat pumps. To smooth energy fluctuations and maintain sensitive data-center hardware, there is a need to scale up long-duration energy storage technologies. Such aggregated demand can bring battery costs down, opening the door for other sectors to electrify their operations. AI’s requirement for firm power has also brought technologies such as geothermal and small modular reactors into the public debate.
Record-breaking heat and increasing cooling needs
Heat waves and wildfires are becoming more frequent, intense, and long-lasting. This summer, Europe experienced its hottest June-July period on record with more than thirty thousand excess deaths. Meanwhile, North America, Africa, and Asia experienced their warmest July on record.
Since 2015, space cooling alone has accounted for 14 percent of all global electricity demand growth. In regions with high ambient temperatures, such as the Middle East and North Africa, where average temperatures are rising at twice the global rate, cooling makes up almost 50 percent of peak electricity demand and 25 percent of annual electricity demand growth. Since standard cooling systems run exclusively on electricity, rising cooling needs add another major source of load, pushing utilities to expand the power system.
Those investments can, in turn, create additional capacity for electrification in other sectors. In addition, the concentrated nature of cooling demand, along with sudden noon and evening peaks during heat waves, requires utilities companies to invest heavily in grid expansion and distributed battery storage.
A perfect storm for policy reform
The surge in electricity demand and corresponding influx of electrified end uses requires substantial infrastructure upgrades such as expanding transmission lines, replacing transformers, and securing cables and insulation materials. However, the binding constraint is not necessarily physical; it is the political and regulatory overlay that could delay this massive build-out.
For a long time, lawmakers from the right and left have called for permitting reform to accelerate the deployment of infrastructure and energy projects. Their motivations differ, but the legislative appetite for streamlining energy project approvals spans the entire ideological spectrum. Whether it is a solar farm or a natural gas power plant, a ten-year waiting period threatens national competitiveness.
The surge in electrical loads and increasingly visible grid vulnerabilities are pushing governments to streamline procedures required to build needed grid infrastructure. Permitting reform has emerged as a priority for lawmakers in the United States, Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
A rising tide lifts all boats? Maybe!
In a classic “a rising tide lifts all boats” dynamic, surging electricity demand may be making electrification less politically contentious by turning grid expansion into an economic (and security) imperative. Modern grid infrastructure would help connect all sources of energy to consumers. However, technological shifts tend to pick winners and losers. Increased electrification does not necessarily mean cleaner or more equitable expansion of the power grid. It is critical to ensure that the rising tide of electrification does not just lift legacy fossil fuel industries and leave clean energy boats dashed on the rocks.
Mahmoud Abouelnaga is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center.
The GeoTech Center champions positive paths forward that societies can pursue to ensure new technologies and data empower people, prosperity, and peace.
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