Annual Energy Outlook 2026

• Release date: April 8, 2026

Overview

Factors such as economic growth, future oil prices, the ultimate size of domestic energy resources, and technological change are often uncertain. To illustrate some of these uncertainties, EIA runs side cases to show how the model responds to changes in key input variables compared with the Reference case. The various cases covered in the Annual Energy Outlook 2026 (AEO2026) are described in this document. AEO2026 has eleven cases:

• Counterfactual Baseline
• High Economic Growth
• Low Economic Growth
• High Oil and Gas Supply
• Low Oil and Gas Supply
• High Zero-carbon Technology Cost
• Low Zero-carbon Technology Cost
• High Electricity Demand
• Alternative Electricity
• Alternative Transportation
• Alternative Electricity and Alternative Transportation Combination

Table 1 provides the formal case names, scenario names, and date keys. Results for all AEO2026 cases are available in the AEO table browser.