Published 07/09/2026

Composites power the energy transition and the AI economy

From record-breaking wind installations to composite conductor cores doubling grid capacity, composites are at the center of the infrastructure driving both clean energy and the digital economy.

Wind/Energy

Scott Francis

Editor-In-Chief, Gardner Business Media

Energy is everywhere right now — in the headlines, in infrastructure investment debates, in the urgent conversations happening in boardrooms and government offices about what it will take to power the next decade. The grid is strained. Demand is climbing. And the technologies needed to meet that demand are being stress-tested in real time. Composites, are right in the middle of it all — and the July 2026 issue of CompositesWorld explores this trend in a couple of feature stories.

Our energy end markets report, written by technical editor Hannah Mason, surveys the remarkable breadth of composites’ role in today’s energy landscape. From record wind capacity and recyclable blades to ceramic matrix composites (CMC) enabling nuclear energy and thermoplastic composite (TPC) pipes for offshore oil and gas, the industry’s reach continues to expand in all directions.

The scale of wind energy growth alone is striking: approximately 165 gigawatts of new global wind capacity were installed in 2025 — a new record, representing a 40% increase over the previous high — pushing cumulative global wind power to roughly 1,299 gigawatts worldwide. The materials making those turbines spin longer, lighter and more reliably are, in no small part, composites. Glass fiber composites dominate the blade and nacelle markets; carbon fiber composite spar caps are enabling increasingly longer blades. And as the industry matures, so too does the focus on end-of-life (EOL) considerations, with recyclable blade initiatives and new sustainability-focused material developments gaining momentum alongside the raw installation numbers.

But the energy story in this issue isn’t only about generation. It’s also about getting power where it needs to go — and doing so efficiently, at scale, across infrastructure that in many cases was never designed for the demands being placed on it today. Executive editor Ginger Gardiner’s feature on composite conductor cores for electrical transmission is one of the most compelling pieces we’ve published on composites in energy infrastructure in some time, and its connection to the AI movement we’re living through is hard to miss.

Demand for electricity is surging worldwide to power AI data centers, electrify transportation and industry, and keep pace with growth in developing economies. In the U.S. alone, the load forecast has surged six-fold over the past 3 years, straining transmission corridors already operating near their limits. Half the U.S. grid is more than 30 years old, while 40% of Europe’s overhead lines are more than 40 years old — systems that lack both the capacity and flexibility to transmit the power increasingly needed.

The solution being explored doesn’t necessarily require tearing down towers or building entirely new lines. Replacing conventional steel core conductors with advanced composite cores — typically carbon fiber-reinforced polymer encapsulated in glass fiber composite — can increase current-carrying capacity by as much as 200% and cut transmission losses by up to 50%, with payback periods for transmission operators potentially as short as 24 months. These advanced conductors are already widely deployed and their use is growing rapidly. And the latest generation of products is evolving beyond pure performance gains, incorporating embedded sensing systems and real-time monitoring capabilities that point toward smarter, more adaptive grids.

Taken together, these two features illustrate something worth pausing on: Composites aren’t just supporting the energy transition in the ways we might expect — they’re enabling the infrastructure that powers the digital economy itself: the data centers, the AI platforms, the connected systems that are reshaping how we live and work. As the International Energy Agency (IEA) has noted, electricity demand from data centers is among the fastest-growing segments of global consumption. The grid needs to keep up. And composites are helping make that possible.