Renewable Energy 2026

Introduction

Renewable energy is the dominant force in new power generation worldwide. Deployment benchmarks are broken year after year, capital is flowing into the sector across a wide range of markets, and the legal and regulatory frameworks that govern it have matured considerably. In addition, projects and regulatory frameworks for alternative renewable technologies and energy carriers, including hydrogen, biofuels and sustainable heat, continue to develop.

The net-zero target of decarbonisation by mid-century remains an important anchor of energy policy across many major economies, its urgency sharpened further by energy security concerns, the intensifying competition for industrial advantage and the increasingly visible consequences of a warming climate.

This new edition of the Chambers Renewable Energy Global Practice Guide offers an updated jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction overview of the laws and regulations shaping the renewable energy landscape worldwide, as well as current trends, market developments and future outlooks.

Global Commitments and Policies

International climate governance has entered a new phase focused on implementation and accountability. The landmark commitment made at the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) in Dubai in 2023 – to transition away from fossil fuels and to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 – continues to reverberate through national energy strategies and regulatory programmes. COP29, held in Baku in November 2024, built upon that platform by agreeing a new collective quantified goal on climate finance aimed at scaling up support for developing countries. COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, in November 2025, shifted attention towards implementing the Paris Agreement and the outcomes of the first Global Stocktake. At the conference, the EU renewed its commitment to the COP28 energy-transition pledges, while a coalition of more than 80 countries, including the EU and its member states, launched a separate Brazil-led partnership to transition away from fossil fuels. These coalition initiatives should be distinguished from commitments agreed by all parties through the formal COP process.

The Paris Agreement architecture continues to evolve. By the end of COP30, more than 122 parties had submitted nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), including stronger climate plans from several major economies. Nevertheless, the aggregate ambition remained insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals. COP30 also established the Just Transition Mechanism and called for efforts to at least triple adaptation finance by 2035 within the climate finance framework agreed at COP29. For the renewable energy sector, the central questions remain how quickly national commitments translate into implementation, on what legal terms and with what allocation of costs and benefits.

In the EU, the revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) provides a framework for the 2030 renewable energy target, permitting acceleration and the designation of renewables acceleration areas. National implementation and its practical effect on project development remain important areas for practitioners. The EU’s Net-Zero Industry Act and Critical Raw Materials Act address domestic manufacturing capacity and supply chain resilience, while the European electricity market reform package agreed in 2024 addresses the relationship between long-term contracts, spot markets and consumer protection. Ahead of COP30, the EU also confirmed an NDC targeting a 66.25% to 72.5% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 compared with 1990 levels, reinforcing the importance of translating climate commitments into national energy measures.

In the United States, the tax incentives introduced by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) have played an important role in clean energy investment and domestic manufacturing. Investment and production tax credits, together with transferability and direct-pay mechanisms, are important features of the financing landscape. Their availability and application must, however, be assessed against the legislation and Treasury guidance applicable to each project, rather than assumed to remain unchanged. Political and regulatory uncertainty makes careful attention to eligibility requirements, timing and change-in-law risk particularly important, alongside the development of hydrogen production incentives and grid siting reform.

In Asia, China remains a leading market for renewable energy deployment, and its dominance in solar manufacturing is reshaping global supply chains and trade policy simultaneously. India has emerged as one of the most dynamic markets for large-scale renewable procurement, with offshore wind ambitions, a maturing renewables auction framework and an evolving green hydrogen policy. Japan and South Korea continue to develop their offshore wind legal regimes, with grid integration, community engagement and supply chain localisation remaining important considerations.

Decentralised action continues to intensify across all regions. Sub-national governments, cities and Indigenous-led energy initiatives are advancing their own renewable programmes, often ahead of national policy frameworks. These developments are generating novel questions of legal authority, land rights, community benefit sharing and governance that practitioners and regulators must increasingly address.

Innovations and Investments

Global investment in the energy transition continues to attract substantial capital, with renewable power generation accounting for a significant share. The economics of solar photovoltaic (PV), onshore wind and battery storage have continued to improve, even as project developers navigate a more complex environment of grid constraints, supply chain pressures and financing costs in certain markets. The range of technologies attracting meaningful capital has expanded considerably: green hydrogen, floating offshore wind, long-duration energy storage, geothermal, sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) and agrivoltaics are all attracting investment.

The legal structures supporting investment have grown correspondingly more sophisticated. Corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) are now a mainstream instrument across Europe, North America and a growing number of emerging markets, and the legal frameworks governing them – including indexation, curtailment risk allocation, credit support and change-in-law protections – are the subject of intensive negotiation and, increasingly, standardisation efforts. Institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and infrastructure funds have deepened their commitment to the sector, bringing with them heightened scrutiny of environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliance, supply chain due diligence requirements and the evolving framework under instruments such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), as well as biodiversity impact assessments.

The renewable energy sector remains a significant source of employment globally, with continued strong demand for legal, regulatory and compliance expertise. The corporate energy buyer market – led by technology companies, data centre operators, manufacturers and retailers – remains a powerful driver of PPA demand and is increasingly influencing the design of electricity market rules and network tariffs.

Wind Energy

Wind power remains the backbone of utility-scale renewable energy in many of the world’s leading markets. Onshore wind continues to offer the lowest levelised cost of energy in favourable resource locations, though permitting reform remains an unfinished agenda in several jurisdictions where planning timelines still constrain development pipelines.

Offshore wind has undergone a period of significant recalibration. Following the project cancellations and auction failures of 2023–24 – attributable to supply chain inflation, interest rate pressures and, in some markets, inadequate contract-for-difference strike prices – the sector has adapted. Revised auction designs, cost-reflective support levels and port and supply chain infrastructure programmes remain important to project viability in markets including the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and the United States. In Asia-Pacific, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia are progressing offshore wind pipelines with evolving local content, grid connection and maritime law frameworks.

Floating offshore wind has advanced from demonstration towards early commercial-scale deployment in parts of Europe and Asia. The regulatory novelty of this technology – spanning maritime law, environmental impact assessment, grid connection regimes and decommissioning obligations – continues to generate new legal questions, and bespoke regulatory frameworks are beginning to emerge.

Tender design across all wind sub-sectors increasingly incorporates non-price criteria, including biodiversity net gain, supply chain sustainability, coexistence with fisheries and other maritime users, and community benefit obligations. Practitioners advising on bid preparation and contract negotiation must engage with this broader matrix of legal obligations alongside traditional commercial terms.

Solar Power

Solar PV remains one of the fastest-growing electricity generation technologies in the world. Global installed capacity continues to expand, with utility-scale and distributed generation both contributing to that growth. Module costs have continued to fall, making solar competitive without subsidy across an ever-wider range of markets and use cases.

Ground-mounted utility-scale solar is now subject to increasingly complex permitting environments, particularly with regard to land-use conflict, agricultural land protection, biodiversity net gain requirements and grid connection reform. Agrivoltaics – the co-location of solar panels with agricultural production – is attracting growing policy and investor attention, accompanied by emerging legal frameworks in Europe, Japan and the United States.

Rooftop and distributed solar continue to democratise access to clean energy, with self-consumption regulations, net metering reform, community energy models and peer-to-peer trading frameworks evolving rapidly in many jurisdictions. In emerging markets across Africa, South Asia and Latin America, off-grid and mini-grid solar – increasingly coupled with battery storage – remains a primary vehicle for rural electrification and universal energy access, supported by donor-backed legal frameworks and public–private partnerships.

Other Renewable Technologies

Beyond wind and solar, a broader portfolio of renewable technologies is gaining regulatory maturity and investment momentum.

Green hydrogen is central to long-term decarbonisation strategies for certain hard-to-abate sectors and is the subject of developing regulatory frameworks in the EU, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Chile and several Gulf states. The application of the EU’s renewable hydrogen production criteria, US hydrogen production tax credit rules and the emergence of international hydrogen trade corridors are defining the legal contours of the nascent global hydrogen market. Certification schemes, infrastructure access rules, blending mandates and import/export frameworks are all active areas of legal development.

Battery and long-duration energy storage have become a sector in their own right. Storage-specific licensing regimes, market participation rules, co-location frameworks, safety standards and revenue stacking regulations have emerged or are emerging in most major electricity markets. The interaction of storage with network charges, balancing markets and capacity mechanisms remains a fertile area of legal and regulatory complexity.

Sustainable heat – including geothermal, biomass and waste heat recovery via district heating networks – is expanding as the building and industrial sectors face decarbonisation pressure. Regulatory frameworks addressing consumer protection, emissions standards, permitting and pricing transparency for heat networks are advancing, particularly in Northern Europe.

Biofuels and SAFs are the subject of escalating regulatory activity. SAF mandates and their implementation are important considerations in the EU, the UK and several other jurisdictions. Maritime decarbonisation measures under the IMO’s revised greenhouse gas (GHG) strategy and the EU’s FuelEU Maritime Regulation are creating new demand for green fuels, accompanied by intense legal debate around feedstock certification, life cycle emissions accounting and the risk of greenwashing liability.

Grid Integration and Energy Storage

Transmission infrastructure has become one of the most significant bottlenecks to the energy transition. Interconnection queues stretching years into the future, permitting delays for new lines and substations, and inadequate cross-border interconnection capacity are constraining the deployment of otherwise commercially viable renewable projects. In response, regulators and legislators in the EU, the US, the UK and elsewhere have introduced or are advancing substantial grid reform programmes: accelerated permitting regimes, mandatory queue reform, cost-allocation frameworks for anticipatory network investment, and enhanced mechanisms for offshore hybrid interconnectors and multi-terminal high-voltage direct current (HVDC) systems.

Battery storage installations continue to expand at both utility scale and behind the meter. Legal frameworks for storage – covering market access, revenue stacking, co-location with generation, grid services, safety and decommissioning – are now an active area of regulatory development in virtually every major jurisdiction.

Smart grid development, demand response and electricity market digitalisation are increasingly entangled with cybersecurity regulation, data governance and consumer privacy law. The EU’s Network and Information Systems Directive (NIS2) and the Cyber Resilience Act framework are among the instruments relevant to the obligations of energy sector operators as digital infrastructure and physical energy infrastructure converge.

Conclusion

The renewable energy transition is a structural economic and legal reality. The convergence of favourable economics, technological progress and investor appetite, supported in many markets by political commitment, is reshaping power systems on every continent. And yet the pace of change required to meet 2030 milestones and stay on a credible path to net zero by mid-century remains demanding. Permitting backlogs, grid constraints, supply chain dependencies, financing gaps in emerging markets and the persistent challenge of ensuring a just and equitable transition all require sustained legal and regulatory innovation.

For legal practitioners, this edition arrives at a moment of extraordinary professional opportunity and responsibility. The transactions being structured, the regulatory frameworks being designed and the disputes being resolved today will determine the shape of energy systems for decades to come. The quality of legal advice, the ingenuity of contractual frameworks and the rigour of regulatory engagement have never mattered more.

This 2026–27 edition of the Chambers Global Practice Guide aims to equip practitioners, investors and policymakers with the authoritative knowledge required to operate with confidence in one of the most consequential sectors of the global economy.