Uninterrupted availability of energy at an affordable price has long been understood as a key basis for economic growth. In the past few years, however, energy security has taken on new meaning and significance for the UK, and Europe, in the context of climate mitigation goals, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy crises and supply chain risks, and worsening global trade relations.
As a result, the UK Government now prioritises the expansion of domestic, low carbon energy production to reduce exposure to volatile international fossil fuel markets. This updated reading of energy security necessarily entails an orderly transition to affordable, clean British energy.
In this policy brief, UKERC and EDRC researchers define energy security as ‘balancing energy demand with supply’, in ways that are reliable, affordable, and sustainable for consumers. The authors’ recommendation is to adopt a more proactive and coordinated demand-centred approach – rather than focusing on ensuring supplies to meet ‘given’ demand levels.
Although demand-side policies in support of energy security are not uncommon, particularly at times of crisis, they have been limited and reactive in their deployment. This relates to tendencies to frame energy security as obtaining whatever supply is sufficient to meet given levels of demand, without acknowledging that energy demand itself is shaped by policy choices. This asymmetry is encapsulated in the UK’s Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, which defines energy security as the energy system “meeting demand, while protecting families and businesses from global supply shocks and volatile prices”.
The comparative neglect of demand-side opportunities is also reflected in the integrated assessment models (IAMs) and scenarios that dominate how policy-makers understand energy futures. Often, any role for demand-side policy in ensuring energy security is acknowledged in a reactive manner, during and post crises, including by the International Energy Agency (IEA), European Union (EU), and UK Government.
The authors recommend actively planning for a lower demand energy system and realising it through a coordinated demand-side approach that makes the most of the many innovations in collective understandings of the demand side.