Energy security is the assurance that facilities, regions, and nations can reliably access sufficient, affordable, and sustainable power. In the 5IR context, energy security extends beyond supply adequacy to include resilience against disruptions, cybersecurity for digital energy systems, and autonomy through distributed and clean energy sources.
Energy resilience complements security by ensuring that energy systems can withstand, adapt to, and rapidly recover from shocks—whether physical, digital, or market-driven.
▢ Supply Security – Stable access to fuels, electricity, and storage resources.
▢ Infrastructure Resilience – Hardening and redundancy of grids, microgrids, and critical facility power systems.
▢ Cybersecurity – Protection of digital control systems (EMS, SCADA, DERMS) against cyberattacks.
▢ Geopolitical Risk – Exposure to supply chain disruptions in fuels, rare earths, and equipment.
▢ Affordability & Market Stability – Ensuring price stability for consumers and enterprises.
▢ Sustainability & Autonomy – Using clean energy, storage, and on-site generation to reduce dependency on volatile global supply chains.
Ranked energy threats by likelihood x impact:
1. Cyberattacks on Grid/EMS
Ransomware on SCADA, EMS hijack. Increasingly frequent; can cascade quickly.
Likelihood: High | Impact: Severe
2. Transmission Disruptions
Transformer failure, line sabotage. Long lead times for replacement equipment.
Likelihood:Medium | Impact: Severe
3. Fuel Supply Disruptions
Natural gas pipeline outage, oil embargo. Still critical for legacy systems and peaker plants.
Likelihood:Medium | Impact: High
4. Equipment Shortages
Grid transformers, inverters, BESS delays. Affects scaling and recovery speed.
Likelihood:High | Impact: Medium
5. Extreme Weather/Disasters
Hurricanes, heatwaves, earthquakes. Regionalized impact; weatherization helps.
Likelihood: Medium | Impact: High
6. Market & Price Volatility
Gas price spikes, carbon pricing. Impacts affordability more than resilience.
Likelihood:High | Impact: Medium
7. Geopolitical Conflict
Rare earth/critical mineral restrictions. Key concern for EVs, chips, storage supply chains.
Likelihood: Low | Impact: High
▢ Aging infrastructure – Overloaded, under-maintained, and difficult to upgrade quickly.
▢ Interdependence – Globalized fuel and equipment supply chains introduce systemic risk.
▢ Digital vulnerability – Every EMS, inverter, and smart meter adds a cyber attack surface.
▢ High replacement lead times – Grid-scale transformers and certain components may take 12–24 months to source.
▢ Weather & disaster exposure – Strain from heatwaves, storms, and droughts.
▢ Distributed Resilience – Deploying microgrids, on-site renewables, and BESS at critical facilities.
▢ Cybersecurity Hardening – Zero-trust architecture, AI-driven anomaly detection, and supply-chain secure hardware.
▢ Smart Grid Technologies – Real-time visibility, automated fault detection, and load balancing.
▢ Strategic Reserves & Redundancy – Stockpiling transformers, critical spares, and ensuring redundant energy pathways.
▢ Geopolitical Diversification – Localizing rare earth mining, refining, and critical component production.
▢ Energy Autonomy – Facilities producing and managing their own clean energy, reducing exposure to grid instability.