Global Energy Agenda
May 28, 2026 • 6:15 pm ET
Lana Zerkal
Lana Zerkal is a member of the Ukraine Facility Platform’s Coordination Council, and Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. This essay is part of the 2026 Global Energy Agenda.
Europe’s electricity grids were not built for the demands now being placed on them. The proliferation of large-scale data centers has fundamentally altered the continent’s energy arithmetic. This energy demand growth has exposed a structural power deficit that European policymakers have yet to adequately address. The bloc’s planning and permitting system has been widely criticized as fragmented and ill-suited to the pace now required. Meanwhile, Ukraine, whose infrastructure was designed expressly to export energy, has the potential to more quickly close part of Europe’s energy gap—despite four years of systematic attacks on its grid by Russia.
