Navigating energy security amid an evolving risk landscape

This discussion paper provides a structured foundation for more coordinated and forward-looking approaches to energy security planning. It clarifies how energy security is being reshaped in an era of rapid system transformation and increasingly interconnected risks. Building on this perspective, the paper places recent disruptions, including geopolitical tensions, global market volatility and supply chain constraints, in the context of broader shifts in the energy system. Rising electrification, expanding digital infrastructure and increasing climate impacts are changing system dynamics, which in turn shape how different risks manifest and compound. The paper organises these developments into seven categories of risk, covering geopolitical and macroeconomic factors, resource and supply chain systems, infrastructure and operational performance, technological and cybersecurity challenges, governance and social dynamics, climate and environmental pressures, and financial and investment conditions.

The paper also draws attention to the contextual nature of energy security, with each country’s experience shaped by its system characteristics, resource endowments and institutional capacity. This recognition underscores the need for strategies that reflect each country’s specific vulnerabilities and strengths and account for how risk profiles evolve as energy systems transition.

To guide strategic action, the paper introduces the 3R Framework, centred around key energy security objectives of reliability, responsiveness and resilience, as a way to organise various interventions that strengthen system performance under both immediate shocks and longer term structural change. It concludes with a practical process for applying this framework, covering risk assessment, prioritisation, implementation and institutionalisation.