In 2026, The Real Energy Battle Is On The Demand Side
As global powers clash over oil supply, the defining energy trend of 2026 is demand-side change, driven by consumer choices in countries like India. The most powerful energy asset isn’t a Venezuelan oil well, but an efficient circuit in New Delhi.
What is the big trend we are watching out for in 2026? Well, to go back to the trigger-happy actions by the United States over the weekend, one trend for sure will be energy.
The US military’s lightning extraction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was a move reminiscent of the Cold War, but the motivation was purely 21st-century energy cravings.
By President Donald Trump’s own admission, this wasn't just about democracy; it was about the world’s largest oil reserves.
For Washington, the goal is a nostalgic return to 1976, before nationalisation, when American oil giants were deeply enmeshed in the country’s oil economy.
But as we enter 2026, the flare-up in Caracas is only half the story.
While the West remains obsessed with securing the supply of fossil fuels, the real revolution has been happening on the demand side in the world’s most populous nation, India.
The Real Shift
Last August, Washington slapped an additional 25% import duty on Indian exports, a punitive tax for India buying discounted Russian crude.
It was a blunt instrument intended to signal that buying from Moscow is tantamount to funding the war in Ukraine.
The strategy, however messy, showed results.
Russian oil, which once commanded 40% of India’s imports, ebbed to a three-year low of 25% as Indian refiners ducked the crossfire of secondary sanctions.
Which brings us to the demand side of the equation.
A conversation with Vartika Shuka, Chairman and Managing Director of Engineers India Limited (EIL), the state-owned firm that helps build India’s energy infrastructure, brought this to the fore for me last week.
In a conversation two weeks ago, I asked Shukla about an exciting project that her team had worked on in the last year.
Bear in mind that EIL is busy building refineries, petrochemical complexes and energy projects from Mongolia to Nigeria and Guyana to, of course, India and overseeing cutting-edge projects ranging from small modular nuclear reactors to sustainable aviation fuel.
But the pet project is a solar cooker.
And an attempt to de-engineer the cost and weight of solar thermal cooking for the masses, picking up on a project kickstarted by state-owned oil giant Indian Oil Corporation.
“We wanted to see how we as a team can look at reducing the cost as well as the weight of the solar cooker such that it becomes, you know, affordable and friendly to the masses,” she told me at the EIL headquarters in New Delhi.
It sounds simplistic, even quaint, until you look at the math.
India imports more than 80% of its crude. For a nation of 1.4 billion, energy security isn't just about finding more oil; it’s obviously about needing less of it.
This is not new thinking as is reflected in India’s hard push for renewable energy in recent years which is now overtaken targets set for 2030.
But we have also seen this play out in schemes like UJALA.
Ten years ago, the Indian government bet that bulk procurement could turn LED bulbs from a luxury into a commodity.
Today, with 368 million bulbs distributed and an estimated $2.3 billion in annual electricity savings, the "world’s largest zero-subsidy lighting program" has demonstrated that market-driven demand reduction can be effective in managing demand.
For example, it has curtailed over 9,000 MW of peak demand, the equivalent of several large coal plants, simply by changing a lightbulb.
Demand Is the Story
The 2026 trend to watch isn't just the supply story of American interventionism in South America.
It is the demand story written in the consumer choices of countries like India.
Whether it is the surge in electric two-wheelers and three-wheelers on Indian roads or the
push for energy-efficient households, the goal is clear: decoupling growth from the whims of petro-states.
As we navigate this complex year, the lesson for policymakers is stark.
Managing the geopolitics of supply is a reactive, expensive game of whack-a-mole.
But fostering conscious consumerism, perhaps even convincing the public that a 10-minute grocery delivery isn’t worth the carbon footprint, is where the real sovereignty lies.
In 2026, the most powerful energy asset isn't a well in Venezuela, it’s an efficient circuit in New Delhi.
