Energy
Energy security now means keeping supply adequate and affordable while the system electrifies, decarbonises and becomes more weather-dependent, so the field's risks sit at the joints between fuels, grids, weather and markets.
- Institution
- The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
- Service level
- R0: information and enquiries
The short answer.
Energy as a field of risk covers the reliability, security and transition of the systems that produce, store and deliver power, heat and fuels, and the services that depend on them. In the Nexus Consortium it is studied as science at GCRI by Energy Nexus as well as Data and Compute; this gateway links those platforms and the methods they share.
The field, seen three ways.
Governance and dialogue
No platform yet in this field.
Financial understanding
No platform yet in this field.
Adequacy under correlated weather and tight interconnection.
A power system with high shares of wind and solar is exposed to multi-day low-output periods that coincide with cold or heat-driven demand peaks; a gas-dependent system is exposed to global LNG competition. Resource adequacy assessment has moved from deterministic reserve margins to probabilistic metrics such as loss-of-load expectation and expected unserved energy, run on many weather years.
- Common-mode failures: extreme cold that freezes gas supply and generation together.
- Cross-border contagion: interconnectors that share reserves also share scarcity prices.
- Supply-chain concentration: transformers, grid equipment and critical minerals with long lead times.
- Cyber exposure of operational technology in grids and pipelines.
Standards and bodies that govern energy risk.
| Framework or body | What it governs or supplies |
|---|---|
| IEA energy security mechanisms and outlooks | Oil stock obligations, gas and electricity security analysis |
| Transmission system operator reliability standards (for example NERC in North America, ENTSO-E in Europe) | Planning and operational reliability, resource adequacy assessments |
| IEC 61850 and IEC 62443 | Substation automation communication and industrial control security |
| IAEA safety standards | Nuclear safety, including external hazards to plants |
What energy failures reach.
- Water: cooling and hydropower tie generation to river flow and temperature.
- Data and compute: data-centre load growth changes demand forecasts and siting.
- Critical infrastructure: every other network needs power to run.
- Trade: fuel import dependence and equipment supply chains.
The science sits on Energy Nexus; methods start from power engineering.
The methods behind the field.
- Energy generation, storage and grid technology
- Power systems engineering
- Reliability and resilience engineering
- Optimization and operations research
- Forecasting and time-series analysis
- Network science and contagion
- Materials science and chemistry
- Process and industrial safety engineering
- High-performance, cloud and edge computing
- Data engineering, interoperability and stewardship
- Cybersecurity and cryptography
- Physics and quantum science
Terms used on this page.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Energy security | The uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price, in the IEA's definition, with long-term and short-term dimensions. |
| Resource adequacy | The ability of a power system's supply and demand-side resources to meet demand at all times, assessed with probabilistic measures such as loss of load expectation. |
| Grid resilience | A power system's ability to withstand, absorb and recover from high-impact events such as storms, heat waves and cyberattacks. |
| Black start | Restarting a power system after a total or partial shutdown using generators that can start without external electricity. |
Where this page's references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Questions and answers.
Why does GCRI host field gateways?
Around GCRI.
Start with an enquiry.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.