Aside from people and the gifts they bring to the proverbial table, the biggest driver of economic growth is energy. The foundational ingredients of modern lifestyle and job enhancement are power and electricity.
For instance there are no low-energy rich countries. At the same time, the energy-rich nations flourish but must plan for future growth and sustainability.
It’s hardly debatable, and TIME’s new list of most impactful companies in the world certainly makes that point more obvious.
The news magazine’s website’s recent Most Impactful Companies of 2026 list includes four energy-focused firms in the top 10 and seven in the top 20. Residential solar developer Sunrun led all energy firms in TIME’s list at No. 5 after drug and biotechnology firms took the top four spots.
The TIME work, done in partnership with Statista, aims at companies which balance corporate goals and global sustainability needs.
The rise of distributed energy resources is a clear mover for the top companies list. Sunrun has developed and installed residential solar for more than one million customers, while those subscribers are becoming more self-sufficient energy “prosumers” by packaging PV panels with battery storage.
“This allows homeowners to “generate their energy, store their energy, and use it to make sure that they have no outages in their home, to make sure that they're maximizing any kind of complex utility rates,” Sunrun CEO Mary Powell said as quoted in the TIME article. “But then we also take that energy and export it back to the grid.”
China-based Sungrow, which produces inverters and also packages solar and storage, was ranked No. 7 on the TIME Most Impactful Companies list. EV and battery storage manufacturer Tesla was sixth, Austrian utility Verbund ranked 10th, clean energy investor Brookfield Renewable Partners was 12th, battery maker LG Energy Solution at 14th and French energy services and water management firm Veolia was ranked at 17th.
Other energy developers further down the list included SMA Solar Technology at 21st, Meridian Energy at 25th, Kyushu Electric Power at 29th,, SolarEdge 34th, Chubu Electric Power 35th, European Energy 45th and Northland Power 48th.
Fourteen energy technology firms were ranked among the top 50 of TIME’s Most Impact Company list. TIME partnered with research firm Statista on creating the first edition of the list.
The focus is on companies which work to align with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
