Climate change, driven largely by long-term dependence on fossil fuels, is a lived reality today. In India, its impacts are already visible in the form of record-breaking weather events and heatwaves. According to the 2025 Lancet Countdown report, India recorded an average of 19.8 heatwave days last year, of which 6.6 days would not have occurred without human-induced climate change. Globally, the pattern is similar, with the same report tracking 152 record-breaking extreme weather events across 61 countries worldwide. There is broad international agreement: we need to decarbonise, and transition to cleaner fuels.
When most of us think about the “global energy transition,” we imagine a linear shift: from fossil fuels to renewables, from high emissions to low, and from old, polluting technologies to cleaner alternatives. And while that framing holds true in principle, in practice, the transition is far more complex.
Global demand for power hasn’t slowed—it continues to grow. Electricity demand is set to rise by 3.3% in 2025 and 3.7% in 2026, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). Clean energy, therefore, doesn’t simply need to replace existing systems; it needs to expand fast enough to meet entirely new demand.
Renewables have made extraordinary progress in this regard. Costs have fallen sharply, capacity has expanded at scale, and solar and wind are now central to energy planning in many countries. Yet they are not, at least for now, able to fully replace fossil fuels across all use cases, geographies, and timelines. Grid constraints, storage limitations, and intermittency—solar does not generate at night, and wind is not constant—remain real challenges. Layered onto this is the sheer scale and inertia of existing energy systems.
In practice, this means transition pathways must account for complexity, trade-offs and coexistence. For India in particular, this includes recognising that oil and gas will continue to play a critical role in the energy mix for some time – supporting growth, ensuring reliability and underpinning energy security as lower-carbon systems are scaled.
Why India is the fulcrum of the global energy transition
Nowhere are the pressures of the global energy transition more sharply felt than in India. The country ranks sixth on the Climate Risk Index 2025, placing it among the ten nations most affected by extreme weather events over the past three decades. At the same time, India remains one of the world’s fastest-growing energy markets. A large population, rising incomes, expanding industry, and rapid urbanisation continue to drive demand for reliable, affordable power. Energy, in this context, is a development imperative.
This combination of scale, urgency, and constraint makes India a real-world test case for the global energy transition. Solutions that work here must operate at speed, under cost pressure, across diverse geographies, and within complex social and economic realities. If the transition can be designed to work in India, it can work anywhere in the Global South.
India Energy Week: Framing the transition
It is within this context that India Energy Week has taken shape. Launched in 2023, the platform brings together policymakers, industry leaders, technologists, investors, and institutions from across the world to debate priorities, test assumptions, and align on how energy systems must evolve. Its rapid growth reflects India’s rising role in the global energy landscape—and the recognition that transition pathways will differ by country, context, and constraint.
At the centre of India Energy Week 2026 is the Strategic Conference. Delivered over four days, it is organised across four stages—Collaboration, Resilience, Transition, and Addition—mirroring how energy systems evolve in practice. The structure is deliberate: it allows hard questions around security, affordability and decarbonisation to be examined together, rather than in isolation. It also allows for multiple pathways to coexist, and build on one another.
While the four-stage structure of the Strategic Conference provides the architecture, the ten core themes supply the substance. Together, they reflect the reality that energy transition does not move in straight lines, nor does it advance through a single set of solutions. It needs multiple lenses operating at the same time.
The themes are designed to build on one another – and, at times, overlap. They move from cooperation and system design to delivery, resilience and long-term transformation, mirroring the way energy systems evolve in practice. Together, they form a connected framework for understanding how security, affordability and decarbonisation intersect.
Energy collaboration
It begins with cooperation. Discussions will focus on how countries, markets and institutions can navigate an increasingly fragmented global landscape while keeping energy secure, affordable and accessible.
This comes through in leadership panels such as Duties, deals and disruptions: navigating the new norms in global energy trading, staged on the Resilience Stage. The session will examine how shifting trade policies, supply-chain realignments and geopolitical pressures are reshaping global energy flows – and what governments and industry can do to manage disruption, reduce risk and restore predictability in energy markets.
Complementing this is New carbon market methodologies: reshaping opportunities in the global carbon credits and offsetting ecosystem, a Transition Stage leadership panel that will explore how evolving carbon market frameworks can support cross-border decarbonisation, improve credibility and unlock investment at scale.
On the Addition Stage, Partnering with India on upstream will examine collaboration through upstream development, exploring how international partnerships, policy reform and shared technical expertise can support India’s push to expand domestic oil and gas production and strengthen long-term energy security.
Energy addition
If collaboration establishes the groundwork for transition, Energy Addition addresses a more practical reality: no single energy source can meet future demand on its own. The focus here is on expanding the energy mix through complementary pathways that strengthen energy security while lowering emissions.
Sessions such as Repositioning natural gas and energy transformation on the Collaboration Stage, will examine how natural gas and LNG can support near-term emissions reduction and grid stability through coal-to-gas switching, while evolving into a scalable, cost-competitive component of a lower-carbon energy system.
Looking further ahead, Upstream transformation: driving strategic re-engagement with exploration portfolios, also on the Collaboration Stage, will examine how global oil and gas producers are reassessing exploration strategies in response to rising demand, energy security pressures and renewed investment interest.
Energy equity
Energy transition is incomplete if it doesn’t expand access. Discussions will focus on closing energy gaps and ensuring that decarbonisation supports social progress, economic opportunity and improved quality of life.
In the Collaboration Stage ministerial panel Closing the energy divide: powering social progress, inclusive growth and universal energy access, the session will examine how energy policy can accelerate access, reduce poverty and support development outcomes, particularly in emerging and developing economies.
On the Resilience Stage, OPEC’s World Oil Outlook will ground these discussions in long-term data and analysis, examining global trends in oil demand, supply, refining, policy and technology, and their implications for development and energy access. Drawing on insights from OPEC and its member countries, the session will explore how transparent forecasting and reliable oil supply continue to play a critical role in supporting inclusive growth, particularly across emerging economies.
Energy digital frontiers
As energy systems become more complex, digitalisation becomes central to how they are planned, operated and optimised. The Energy Digital Frontiers theme focuses on the convergence of energy and digital technologies, from AI-driven decision-making to decentralised system management.
On the Collaboration Stage, Strategic synergies for an Energy-AI future will explore how manufacturing intelligence, data and advanced analytics are reshaping energy and industrial systems. The Resilience Stage session Establishing global models for City Gas Distribution networks will examine how smart metering, automated monitoring and the integration of renewable gases such as biomethane and hydrogen can strengthen system efficiency, expand access to clean cooking fuels, and position CGD networks as part of long-term smart city and industrial planning.
On the Transition Stage, Energy for AI deep dive will focus on the rising power needs of data centres, while The future of connections will examine how microgrids and decentralised systems can enable affordable, resilient energy access.
Energy resilience
With volatility now a constant, Energy Resilience focuses on building systems that can anticipate disruption, absorb shocks and recover quickly. The emphasis here is on diversity, flexibility and long-term security.
On the Resilience Stage, Managing global LNG supply and demand dynamics will examine how capacity planning and supply chains must evolve to meet future growth scenarios. Harnessing data and AI-driven decision-making will explore how advanced analytics can improve exploration outcomes and reduce operational risk.
Also on the Resilience Stage, Make in India: strengthening continued growth in India’s E&P supply chain and services sector will examine how domestic manufacturing, EPC capability and services ecosystems can underpin India’s upstream ambitions. The session will explore how policy incentives, technology partnerships and localisation strategies can strengthen supply-chain resilience, reduce dependence on imports and position India as a competitive hub within global oil and gas value chains.
Energy transition
The Energy Transition theme brings together the policy, finance and technology choices required to move from ambition to execution. The focus is on sequencing – what needs to happen, and in what order, for transition pathways to remain credible.
On the Resilience Stage, New strategic perspectives in the global critical minerals sector will examine supply security and self-reliance in materials essential to clean technologies. Accelerating the adoption of Sustainable Aviation Fuel will focus on near-term decarbonisation options for aviation, a sector with limited alternatives.
On the Transition Stage, Tech-powered transition pathways for oil & gas: building a low carbon emissions future will examine how the sector is responding to the dual challenge of sustained hydrocarbon demand and accelerating decarbonisation.
Energy leadership
Energy Leadership focuses on how national capability translates into global influence. The theme examines India’s role in shaping energy outcomes through scale, manufacturing strength and policy direction.
On the Resilience Stage, India’s petrochemical opportunity will examine how domestic capacity can be leveraged into global leadership across value chains. This is complemented on the Addition Stage by From insight to impact, a leadership panel and white paper launch that will focus on how leadership decisions shape outcomes across India’s energy transformation.
Energy investment
None of the transition pathways are viable without capital. Here, the focus is on where financing is flowing, where gaps remain, and how risk is being priced.
While on the Resilience Stage, The real economics of global energy transformation will examine where capital is needed most to meet surging low-carbon energy demand; Shifting the E&P capital equation: attracting investments and driving global partnerships will examine how governments and industry are reshaping policy, fiscal frameworks and partnership models to attract upstream investment.
Energy workforce
As systems change, so must people. Energy Workforce centres on skills, inclusion and leadership.
On the Transition Stage, Technology, talent and Energy 5.0 will examine how AI and digitalisation are reshaping roles, skill requirements and workforce planning. Breaking energy’s gender barriers will address workforce disparities and under-representation in leadership, framing inclusion as a structural challenge rather than a side issue.
Energy innovation
Finally, Energy Innovation focuses on scaling what already works. The emphasis here is on deployment, integration, and impact.
On the Resilience Stage, From Pilot to Planetary Scale will examine how Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies can move beyond demonstration projects. Robust methane emissions monitoring and reduction will focus on measurable, near-term emissions impact.
On the Addition Stage, Waste-to-Wealth will examine how integrating waste management with clean energy production can support circular economic models.
Innovation, in this context, is defined not by invention alone, but by the ability to deploy proven solutions at scale. Together, the ten themes reinforce a central idea: the energy transition is not a single decision or technology shift, but a series of connected choices that must be made in parallel.
From innovation to execution
Innovation only matters if it can be built, deployed, and operated at scale. That is where India Energy Week’s Technical Conference comes in.
Running alongside the Strategic Conference, the Technical Conference is where transition moves from debate to delivery. With over 250 technical speakers, 110+ committee members, and more than 45 sessions, it brings engineers, system designers, and operators into the conversation.
The Technical Conference provides the grounding for the ideas discussed elsewhere—ensuring that innovation at India Energy Week is measured by what can actually be delivered.
Where partnerships take shape
India Energy Week prioritises connection. It creates the right time and place for partnerships to form, bringing decision-makers, operators, investors, and technology providers together in combinations that can actually move projects forward.
With over 700 companies and 75,000+ energy professionals, the exhibition connects developers with suppliers, innovators with capital, and policy intent with delivery partners. Curated thematic zones further concentrate expertise around specific transition priorities, making it easier for collaboration to happen naturally.
In parallel, invitation-only Leadership Roundtables, conducted under the Chatham House Rule, will convene ministers, C-suite executives, and thought leaders for candid dialogue on the sector’s most pressing challenges, while Focus Sessions, workshops, and report launches led by government bodies, trade associations, and industry consultants will add depth and context.
Looking ahead
The world’s demand for power is rising, climate risks are accelerating, and the window for easy choices has closed. For India, this moment is especially compressed. The country must expand energy access, fuel growth, and reduce emissions at the same time—and do so at a scale few others face.
That is what gives India Energy Week its urgency. It is not only a place to advance the conversation on energy transition but also a place where decisions are pressure-tested, partnerships are formed, and work gets done. The speed and variety of solutions matter, because time does.
As India moves toward a $10 trillion economy, it has a rare opportunity: to show that growth and sustainability are not opposing forces but can reinforce one another when designed deliberately. India Energy Week is where that proposition is debated—and where it begins to be built.
India Energy Week 2026 will take place from 27 to 30 January 2026 in Goa. For more information and to participate, visit www.indiaenergyweek.com
