Redefining the European Union's Energy Security

Once again, Europe is facing energy security stress. Oil and gas import disruption risks are immediate, and emergency import-side and fuel-security measures are being discussed by many European countries. Unless EU and national legislation also reform how energy security is defined, assessed, and procured in the electricity sector, the Union will continue to rely disproportionately on fossil capacity.

In the context of the European Commission’s efforts to revise its energy security framework and the energy crisis sparked by the Iran war, this paper sets out a structure to identify electricity-sector security gaps and proposes targeted regulatory reforms to address them. This paper therefore uses a five-pillar taxonomy of electricity-sector energy security. The purpose of this taxonomy is operational, designed to identify where current frameworks systematically overvalue fossil fuels (imports) and underestimate clean, domestic solutions.

These dimensions can be understood through five fundamental questions that any secure electricity system must be able to answer.

• Adequacy – Do we have enough electricity resources to meet demand?
• Stability – Will the power system remain physically stable after a disturbance?
• Flexibility – Can the system efficiently manage variability in renewables’ generation?
• Infrastructure resilience – If infrastructure fails, can the system continue to operate and recover?
• Hybrid threat readiness – Is the energy system resistant to hostile cyber acts?