This document summarizes an academic study that explored expert conceptions of electricity security in the UK context of a low-carbon transition. The study conducted interviews with 25 energy experts from different organizations to discuss 22 issues related to electricity security. The interviews aimed to understand which aspects of security experts view as most important and the underlying concepts they use. The results showed that experts have diverse and competing views of security, and that their perspectives did not clearly align with their organization. The study highlights the need to consider multiple perspectives rather than try to define security with simple metrics.

1. Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Energy Research & Social Science
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/erss
Original research article
Opening the black box of energy security: A study of conceptions of
electricity security in the United Kingdom
Emily Cox
SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit), University of Sussex, 72 Baden Road, Brighton BN2 4DP, UK
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 11 January 2016
Received in revised form 17 June 2016
Accepted 21 June 2016
Keywords:
Energy security
Perceptions
Low-carbon transition
Electricity
a b s t r a c t
Despite much literature on energy security, the term continues to resist a commonly-accepted definition.
Nevertheless, policy decisions are frequently made on the basis of ‘improving energy security’, despite the
lack of any clear understanding of what improving energy security actually means. Therefore this paper
explores the meaning of energy security for key experts in the UK energy sector, with a particular focus
on the security of electricity systems in the context of a low-carbon transition. A set of 22 energy security
issues is discussed with 25 experts from across the energy sector in the UK, in order to get a grasp on
which aspects of energy security are felt to be most important, and to discover the underlying concepts
which are used by experts when making or justifying these choices. The results from the interviews
show that there is a real need to attempt to take into account multiple competing and context-specific
views on energy security, instead of trying to close the discussion down around a small number of simple
quantifiable indicators or metrics. The results also show that there is no clearly discernible alignment
between experts’ perspectives and the type of organisation for which they work.
Crown Copyright © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The term ‘energy security’ has become commonplace in both
academic and policy discussions. However, there exists a consid-
erable array of overlapping and competing conceptualisations, and
despite much literature on the subject the term resists a commonly-
accepted definition [2,13,24,50,97]. Nevertheless, energy security
has become a key driver and justification of much energy policy
in recent years, driven by concerns over resource nationalism and
instability in key export regions such as the Middle East, China and
Russia, concerns over fossil resource concentration, and increasing
pressure on energy systems to undergo a fundamental transition in
order to reduce carbon emissions [12,13,21,47,68]. Therefore this
paper explores the meaning of energy security for key experts in the
UK energy sector, with a particular focus on the electricity system
in the context of a low-carbon transition. The aim is to get a grasp
on what aspects of energy security are felt to be most important,
and to discover the underlying concepts which are used by experts
when making or justifying these choices. This paper thus aspires
to generate an in-depth and transparent discussion which does not
seek to close down the diversity of views, but instead seeks to open
them up to debate and to policy attention.
E-mail addresses: e.cox@sussex.ac.uk, emcoxsax@hotmail.com
As shall be elaborated in the following section, energy security
issues are often context-specific, therefore it makes sense for the
analysis to focus on one specific country [13]. The UK is chosen for
the focus of this paper because its energy system is in a major period
of transition, driven by a number of factors. The UK is entering a
new phase of net fossil fuel imports due to declining domestic pro-
duction, which has increased policy concerns regarding resource
nationalism and resource concentration globally [68,74]. The elec-
tricity supply infrastructure is ageing and will require a significant
proportion of electricity supply capacity to be replaced by the mid-
2020s; the retirement of older fossil fuel power plant capacity has
led to an erosion of capacity margins in the power sector [89,94].
Additionally, the UK is under pressure to decarbonise its energy
system: the 2008 Climate Change Act established the world’s first
legally-binding climate change target [32]. These multiple issues
have meant that energy security has risen extremely rapidly up the
public and policy agenda in the UK in recent years, and unlike many
other European countries, the UK has a specific energy security
strategy [34]. Nevertheless, many other industrialised countries,
both in Europe and further afield, are experiencing similar pres-
sures on their energy systems, meaning that the UK can act as a
useful basis for exploring energy security in other national contexts.
The following section of the paper introduces the literature on
energy security, with a focus on conceptualisations and the evolu-
tion of the term in recent years, and also introduces the focus on the
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2016.06.020
2214-6296/Crown Copyright © 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

2. 2 E. Cox / Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11
security of electricity systems in a low-carbon context upon which
this paper is based. Section 3 then outlines the methodology used
for conducting and analysing interviews with energy experts. Sec-
tion 4 presents the results from the interviews in two parts: firstly
focusing on seven central themes which were identified from the
qualitative interview data, and secondly focusing on the quanti-
tative results and the degree of alignment between respondents’
views and the organisation for which they work. Section 5 dis-
cusses and analyses the results in more detail and in relation to the
wider literature, and also outlines some limitations of the study and
areas for further research. Finally, Section 6 concludes and offers
recommendations for policy.
2. Literature review
2.1. Conceptualising energy security
Energy security is a politicised and multifaceted topic
[22,24,25,97]. There is a considerable array of overlapping and
competing conceptualisations, and despite much literature on the
subject the term resists a commonly-accepted definition. There
are some widely-cited definitions available, including that of the
International Energy Agency (IEA) which states that energy secu-
rity denotes “the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at
an affordable price” [57: 1]. However, as pointed out by Müller-
Kraenner [82], when it comes to such definitions the devil is in the
details: for instance, what exactly does ‘affordable’ mean? The con-
cept of energy security is frequently used to justify various policies
simultaneously, even if these policies appear to be contradictory
[73]. As pointed out by Joskow:
There is one thing that has not changed since the early 1970s. If
you cannot think of a reasoned rationale for some policy based
on standard economic reasoning then argue that the policy is
necessary to promote ‘energy security’ [63: 10].
Because of the challenges that this creates for both academic
and policy discussions, multiple approaches for defining energy
security have been proposed. For example, several earlier papers
(e.g. [5,53,67]) proposed analytical frameworks based around a set
of core goals of ‘secure’ energy systems, often highlighting the
importance of dimensions such as availability, affordability and
accessibility. However, soon numerous similar yet distinct frame-
works existed, with no real means of reaching consensus on which
was deemed most useful [97]. An inductive attempt to identify key
energy security indicators by asking experts came up with a rather
unmanageable total of 372 possible indicators [98]. Despite these
“growing pains”, Cherp and Jewell [22: 420] suggest that concep-
tual and practical attempts should still be made to move towards
a useful universal definition. Meanwhile, others have argued that
the complex and contested nature of energy security means that
a universal definition is probably not a practical goal [24,97]. It is
this latter view which informs this paper, the aim of which is not to
generate an agreed-upon definition of energy security, but rather to
shed more light on the diversity of perspectives amongst key energy
experts. In doing so, this paper aims to demonstrate not only that
energy security means different things to different people, but also
to show what it means and to whom.
As pointed out by Cherp and Jewell [22], vital energy systems
and their vulnerabilities are not just objective phenomena; they are
also political constructs which are defined and prioritised by differ-
ent social actors. It has been shown that energy security concerns
are dynamic and evolve as circumstances change over time, reflect-
ing dominant discourses and political economic trends [2,25,29,74].
However, it is important to emphasise that despite different
understandings, there still exist certain physical, geographical and
system characteristics which somewhat constrain the socially and
politically constructed nature of what we understand by ‘energy
security’. To use the phraseology of Stirling [103,104], a complex
and contested topic such as energy security does not necessarily
mean that ‘anything goes’. Because of such constraints, concep-
tions of energy security tend to be highly context-dependent, and
are strongly correlated with national energy policies and state
imperatives [2,12,100]. As stated by Ciuta [25], we now need to
consider the manner in which different actors and assumptions
cluster around different meanings of energy security.
2.2. The security of low-carbon electricity systems
The security of electricity systems is important because of the
central nature of electricity systems to society, not only in the UK
but everywhere in the world. The energy security literature still
tends to display a prevalent focus on securing supplies of oil and
gas [22,24]; this is largely due to the fact that the literature address-
ing energy security in the sense that we know it today first appeared
as a response to the second oil shock in 1979 [37,38,96]. However,
electricity now represents an equally significant (and growing)
proportion of energy use [24]: projections suggest that electric-
ity will be the fastest growing energy sector in the future [56], and
electricity and heat production is the largest single source of green-
house gas emissions globally [58]. Efforts are already underway to
electrify heating and transport systems in order to make deeper
cuts to emissions from these sectors in the future, meaning that
findings relating to electricity security could eventually become
a key component of efforts to decarbonise heating and transport.
The need for second-by-second balancing of electricity supply and
demand means that electricity security operates on extremely short
timescales, usually addressed in the physical sciences and engi-
neering literature; however, electricity is simultaneously subject
to longer-term risks such as resource concentration and climate
change, usually addressed in the social sciences literature [21].
Electricity is therefore an interesting case in that it encompasses
the range of disciplines within which energy security is rooted, as
well as the full range of timescales across which energy security
operates.
Conceptions of energy security have recently become linked
to environmental issues, in light of an emerging new paradigm
of environmental and social concerns, and numerous conceptions
of energy security now include an ‘environmental sustainabil-
ity’ dimension [42,55,67,83]. Emerging normative and legislative
imperatives to cut carbon emissions are having a fundamental
impact on the context in which energy security is now viewed, and
understandings of energy security in the future will likely need to
exist within this emerging new paradigm. It is also widely under-
stood that there may be certain synergies and trade-offs between
various objectives when attempting to move towards energy sys-
tems which are low-carbon, secure and affordable [28,47,59,91,99].
However, there have been few attempts to explore conceptualisa-
tions of energy security in a low-carbon context, and to attempt
to identify which aspects of ‘security’ are prioritised by energy
experts when considering the imperative to meet affordability and
low-carbon objectives.
3. Methodology
Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with
25 experts from the UK energy sector. Experts were selected from
six different types of organisation within the UK energy sector:

3. E. Cox / Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11 3
energy utilities, NGOs/civil society,1 think tanks, policy/regulation,
electricity network companies, and academia. The interviewees
were selected using a combination of purposive and snowball sam-
pling (see Ref. [108]). The vast majority of the interviewees hold
positions relating to either research or policy and strategy in their
respective organisations (see Appendix A in Supplementary mate-
rials for details); all have specific expertise on energy security. The
purpose of interviewing experts rather than simply energy users
is an attempt to explore the views of those who a) have existing
knowledge of energy systems and energy security and the complex-
ities therein, and b) may have some influence on policy processes,
through direct involvement or participation in research and con-
sultations.
The interviews asked the participants to give their opinions on
a set of pre-defined topics relating to the security of an electric-
ity system in the context of a low-carbon transition, following a
similar methodology to Knox-Hayes et al. [66] and Sovacool et al.
[100]. To set up the pre-defined topics, 22 key issues for the secu-
rity of electricity systems were selected from an in-depth review of
dimensions and indicators used in the existing energy and electric-
ity security literature (beginning with the 372 indicators identified
by Sovacool and Mukherjee [98], and narrowed down considerably
according to issues which primarily relate to electricity systems
and a low-carbon context). The topics were chosen to reflect a very
broad understanding of ‘security’, including aspects of environmen-
tal sustainability and societal concerns, in order to interrogate the
extent to which the experts agreed with this broader understand-
ing. Therefore participants were asked to comment on issues of
environmental sustainability such as carbon emissions and water
usage, and societal issues such as public acceptability (see e.g.
[44,78,100]), as well as some of the more common indicators of
energy security such as diversity and fuel availability (e.g. [59,67]).
Topics relating to affordability were also included, to reflect the
fact that the majority of widely-cited definitions include an afford-
ability dimension (e.g. [12,54,67,117]). Table 1 shows the issues
and indicators discussed during the interviews, and the rationale
behind their inclusion. The purpose of using pre-defined topics was
to attempt to tease out definitions of energy security from concrete
underpinnings; if asked simply to define energy security, respon-
dents may return answers based on common definitions which may
bear little relation to their complex, nuanced and potentially very
broad views.
During the hour-long semi-structured interviews, participants
were asked to discuss each of the 22 energy security issues in turn,
and to state how important they felt each is for the security of a low-
carbon electricity system, and why. Interviewees were also asked
to talk more generally about what they see as the main risks for
UK electricity security in the short, medium and long-term, and
what measures they feel are most important for maximising secu-
rity in a low-carbon context. The purpose of the interviews is not to
attempt to generate an agreed-upon definition or set of indicators
for measuring energy security (which as shown in Sovacool and
Mukherjee [98] runs the risk of generating an unmanageably large
set of issues and indicators). Rather, the purpose is to recognise
and clarify the preferences and priorities of different actors and
to explore their implications. As stated by Cherp and Jewell [22:
220], “The point of conceptualizing a difficult political concept is
not to eliminate different interpretations but rather to enable their
meaningful analysis, comparison and dialogue”.
1
Energy co-ops could technically be viewed as either ‘NGOs’ or ‘utilities’. How-
ever, in light of the fact that employees of energy co-ops are often ideologically
driven, and frequently work as volunteers for many years without earning a wage
from the organisation, it was decided that they have more in common with other
civil society actors than with the utilities.
After the interviews, the transcripts were coded in accordance
with recognised methods for thematic coding analysis, which is a
methodology for identifying key cross-cutting themes and issues
from a set of interview transcripts: transcripts are first coded
according to an unrestricted number of key words and topics;
which are then grouped to find areas of commonality; contention
or repetition; and finally the main topics are grouped together into
a manageable number of core themes (see Burnard et al. [18]). The
core themes identified from the interviews are presented in Sec-
tion 4.1. Furthermore; during the interviews the respondents were
asked to rank each topic on a scale from 1 to 5; with 5 denot-
ing ‘critical importance’ and 1 denoting ‘minimal importance’; in
order to elicit quantitative as well as qualitative data. The rank-
ings are used to generate visual representations of the responses of
each participant to each energy security issue (see Appendix A in
Supplementary materials). Representing the responses in this way
enables an overview of the extent to which stakeholders from the
same types of organisation hold similar views. The small sample
size means that statistical tests of correlation should not be used;
therefore this analysis is best carried out using visual representa-
tion.
4. Results
4.1. Qualitative results: seven major themes
Seven key themes emerged from the thematic coding analysis
of the interview transcripts. These themes were identified because
they were mentioned by several interviewees (usually from a num-
ber of different types of organisation), and because they were
mentioned in relation to a number of different topics. The first
four themes discussed here (Sections 4.1.1–4.1.4) represent areas
in which the majority of the respondents were in agreement with
each other on a particular issue. The last three themes (Sections
4.1.5–4.1.7) represent areas in which there was lots of contention
between different respondents on a particular issue.
4.1.1. Energy security depends on securing adequate investment,
which depends on political stability
One of the most common cross-cutting issues amongst the
respondents was the importance of securing adequate investment.
A majority of respondents noted this as one of the most critical
aspects of ensuring energy security on all timescales, and there
were concerns that the UK (and in fact much of the EU) is currently
at risk of a lack of investment in energy infrastructure. There was
general agreement that in order for this to happen, investors must
be given long-term assurances that their investments will pay off.
There was a common perception amongst respondents that there
is currently a lack of political certainty, especially over whether to
prioritise certain parts of the ‘energy trilemma’2; and the fate of
the UK’s decarbonisation targets as the transition becomes more
challenging. As stated by two respondents:
There has to be a conversation about it, and it really needs to
come from the top down, it needs to be made clear that we’ve got
to do something about climate change and this is what we are
doing, take it or leave it. (Respondent F, head of policy, energy
supplier)
The plan. . . There isn’t technically a plan. The carbon target,
that’s 2050 as we know, but there will need to be plans in order
to achieve the transition because right now we don’t really have
2
The ‘energy trilemma’ posits that energy should be physically secure, affordable
and low-carbon.

4. 4 E. Cox / Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11
Table 1
Energy security issues discussed, rationale for their inclusion, and relevant literature.
Topic Reason for inclusion
Public approval Constraints upon system transitions are often related to socio-political issues, such as the
acceptability of various technological options [6,90,92].
Levels of public participation and engagement Increasing people’s participation in energy projects can reduce opposition, because people are more
likely to object if they feel that energy solutions are being ‘imposed’ on them from outside [10,45,61].
Likelihood of disruption due to direct opposition High levels of general public support don’t always mean that specific projects are approved of, and
many installations which have high national approval ratings fail to gain support at the local level,
sometimes resulting in the failure of the project [9,23,26,118].
Diversity of fuel types in the energy mix Diversity is a common indicator of energy security; diversity can act as a hedge against unpredictable
disruptions [51,71,91,102].
Import dependence Import dependence is a common indicator of energy security (see e.g. [59,67,70,91,111].
Diversity of import routes and suppliers This is another aspect of diversity, also linked to improving the security of imported fuels (see e.g.
[6,59,86].
Stability of major export countries and routes This is a common indicator of energy security in a geopolitical sense (see e.g. [72,86].
Annual electricity bills to consumers This relates to ‘affordability’, to reflect the fact that the majority of widely-cited definitions of energy
security include an affordability dimension (e.g. [12,54,67,117].
Cost of electricity generation Another aspect of affordability, often used to compare the affordability of electricity systems (e.g.
[67,81,91].
Cost of upgrades to the distribution networks The vast majority of actual supply shortfalls occur due to problems on the networks [15,16]. Networks
will need to be upgraded if the electricity system is to undergo a low-carbon transition, which could
be expensive [84,93,106].
Cost of upgrades to the transmission networks As above.
Impact on levels of fuel poverty A key aspect of affordability is equity, to which fuel poverty is highly connected. Fuel poverty is an
issue which pushes to the broader edges of what is commonly meant by ‘energy security’, in order to
explore broader societal and equity issues.
Carbon emissions This is an aspect of long-term environmental sustainability; such aspects are included to interrogate
the extent to which experts agree with broader understandings of energy security. Climate change
caused by carbon emissions could generate multiple risks to energy systems [42,77,119,107].
Depletion of major fuels (gas, coal etc) This is a commonly-cited security issue, especially when viewing energy security a long-term context
(see e.g. [6,19,67,78]. Also an important aspect of long-term environmental sustainability.
Depletion of secondary materials (metals, rare earths etc) This is an emerging security issue, particularly relevant for a low-carbon context due to the increasing
use of rare earth elements and metals for low-carbon technologies (see e.g. [49,80,101].
Water usage Water is crucial for cooling power generation. Water requirements for power generation may come
increasingly under strain in a long-term context, due to pressure on water resources and impacts of
climate change (see e.g. [30,64,69,109].
De-rated capacity margins This is a common indicator of electricity security (see e.g. [33,85,89,94].
Oversupply Oversupply could be a security risk, because it risks making initial investments in generation capacity
economically unviable because of the economic unattractiveness to generators of operating their
plants at low capacity factors [7,8].
Response and Reserve for Grid balancing This is an indicator of flexibility and resilience. No matter how secure the system, unexpected changes
in the supply/demand balance may still occur, and it is important that the system is able to respond
quickly to mitigate the impact of such shocks [65,105].
Flexible demand This is another indicator of flexibility and resilience; demand-side as well as supply-side flexibility
may be important for balancing electricity systems (see [39,40,65].
Electricity storage This is another aspect of electricity system flexibility. Storage can provide responsive electricity, and
may be especially important in a low-carbon transition as a back-up to intermittent renewable supply
[52,105].
Electricity interconnection This is another aspect of electricity system flexibility. Interconnection can provide responsive
electricity, and may be especially important in a low-carbon transition as a back-up to intermittent
renewable supply [88,105].
one beyond 2020. (Respondent U, department head, regulatory
body)
Some respondents went a step further and stated that this polit-
ical feasibility would only be achievable in the context of a ‘social
contract’ for the transition (in other words, shared norms and ideals
which underlie broad public acceptance for a transition to a low-
carbon electricity system). Respondent O (strategy director, NGO)
said:
I do think that this social contract aspect of sustainability is
important, which is that if you want to maintain security you
will need to invest and if you need to invest than you do need
to have the confidence that the public will come with you, and
I think your risk of not having that buy-in becomes quite core.
4.1.2. What is important depends on the spatial context and the
degree of decentralisation
Another major cross-cutting theme which emerged was that
of the importance of context. Spatial context was felt to be very
important by many of the respondents, because some measures can
be highly beneficial for electricity security in certain locations, but
can generate insecurity if located in the wrong places. The national
context was also perceived to be important. Furthermore, a large
number of respondents felt that the level of decentralisation is crit-
ical for security and for the relative importance of the issues. As
suggested by respondent W (department head, network company):
You can conceive of a radically different vision of the future; a
very decentralised world where most energy is being generated
locally with local storage and lots of local micro grids with loose
interconnection. What determines local security of supply in
that world?
It was noted by three respondents that the distinction between
centralised and decentralised energy security could create chal-
lenges for designing a generic framework for comparing the
security of different scenarios, because it could be that many issues
or indicators are better suited for assessing the security of one or
the other. It was also noted that this could be the case for comparing
the security of different national contexts.

5. E. Cox / Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11 5
4.1.3. Realising the potential co-benefits of flexible demand and
demand reduction is crucial
A large number of respondents mentioned the importance of
demand reduction and demand flexibility in relation to a number
of topics. In particular, demand-side response was seen as a pri-
ority for ensuring electricity system flexibility and resilience. For
example, respondent M (consultant, advisory body) said:
We’ve had this very active supply side since the beginning of the
utility industry; what’s been idle is the demand side. If manage-
ment of demand gets more involved, I think that’s the key.
The most important issue to the respondents seemed to be the
potential co-benefits of measures to reduce demand. A majority
of respondents suggested that reduction of overall energy demand
can in theory improve availability, affordability and sustainability.
Some respondents also saw increased action on the demand-side
as a potential means of improving public acceptability of the tran-
sition. However, concerns were also raised about the challenges
of realising widespread demand flexibility, in particular regard-
ing how to increase engagement on the part of consumers; some
respondents argued that “better” engagement would be necessary,
whereas others argued for increased automation of demand flexi-
bility.
4.1.4. Difficult decisions must be made over which part of the
energy trilemma to prioritise
It was frequently noted by the respondents that several of the
measures for improving the security of an electricity system would
be unviable or more complicated in the event of a low-carbon
transition. Thus respondents felt that the transition will involve
making difficult choices, both for policy-makers and the public.
There was no consensus on whether one particular side of the
energy ‘trilemma’ should be prioritised; however, it was frequently
suggested that the biggest risk from a political perspective would
be the cost of achieving the transition, and whether or not peo-
ple would accept those costs. As stated by respondent N (associate
partner, regulatory body):
If supply costs get so high that people can’t pay their bills then
that is going to have a negative impact on security of supply
and you will also end up with political things happening that
will then destabilise things.
Many respondents suggested that the political reality would
be that decarbonisation would probably be sacrificed first, before
availability and affordability, especially in the event that there was
either a serious risk of the ‘lights going out’ or a noticeable increase
in costs. One respondent said:
. . .ultimately when people make decisions about the trilemma,
this [carbon emissions] is the one that gives up in preference
to security of supply. But this is the one that we actually have
a legal obligation to do, whatever that means. (Respondent W,
department head, network company)
Another area in which many respondents noted the difficult
choices ahead was regarding the UK’s high reliability standard for
electricity. Although electricity security is commonly conceptu-
alised as supply continuing to meet demand at a at all times of the
day (the ‘predict-and-provide’ model), a number of respondents
questioned whether this is realistic or desirable in the context of
a highly challenging low-carbon transition. Respondent B (senior
researcher, University) said:
I just think that you can organise your electricity system in dif-
ferent ways, so that you don’t have to have that peak, so you
don’t have to be so far in excess of that peak. . . But govern-
ments have to be concerned about the public’s response, and
the public is not used to power cuts anymore. We’re all spoilt,
aren’t we?
Several respondents also suggested that politicians are currently
too accountable for losses of supply, which makes them err on the
side of caution, and makes it highly unlikely that they will be willing
to broach the subject of changing the way in which consumers in
the UK use electricity.
4.1.5. Disagreement over ‘affordability’ and ‘sustainability’
dimensions
The interview discussions highlighted the fact that there are
major challenges in assessing the security of an energy system
because of high levels of disagreement over what is important for
ensuring energy security. This factor is further complicated by the
addition of the carbon reduction imperative. There was consider-
able disagreement amongst the respondents as to what actually
constitutes energy security, with roughly half of the respondents
believing that affordability and environmental sustainability are
integral to security, whilst others believed that these are separate
issues and should be thought of as trade-offs.
This disagreement manifested itself noticeably in considerable
contention over the majority of the issues discussed. The transcripts
revealed that different participants seemed to be using different
criteria for basing their responses. The two main viewpoints were:
a) The important issues are those which we have an imperative to
address, either for normative reasons or because they represent
a current or future risk (according to the subjective viewpoint
of the respondent)
b) The important issues are those which are simple, direct and/or
quantifiable.
A good example of this can be found in the responses regard-
ing the most contentious topic, ‘fuel poverty’. Respondents who
felt that fuel poverty is critically important for energy security
mostly felt that it represents a real problem in the UK, and therefore
felt that improving energy security will necessitate mitigating fuel
poverty. For example:
You need to be affordable. Fuel poverty itself is a bit of a move-
able feast how you assess it, but you can’t really run an energy
system where the poorest in the country can’t afford to access.
(Respondent Q, civil servant, government department)
Fuel poverty I would put that as pretty important, because that’s
where you see the most potential to engage the public and
there’s a lot more of a moral argument. (Respondent M, Con-
sultant, Advisory body)
On the other hand, several respondents stated that fuel poverty
is too indirect and complex to act as a material part of a conceptu-
alisation or assessment of energy security. For example:
I don’t think that there is a connection between fuel poverty and
energy security. I mean, you could stretch it I suppose. . . But
I’m going to say that it’s not a part of energy security, it’s part
of something different. (Respondent K, research fellow, Univer-
sity)
Well the thing about fuel poverty is, it’s actually shown almost
no ability to influence the politics of energy over quite some
time. I suspect it’s because a lot of those people who are gen-
uinely fuel poor don’t vote. (Respondent C, Scientist, NGO)
This split between different criteria being used as the basis for view-
points was also apparent in discussions regarding a large number of
other issues, particular those relating to affordability and environ-
mental sustainability. Meanwhile, simplicity and directness were

6. 6 E. Cox / Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11
commonly given as key reasons for the importance of traditional
indicators such as de-rated capacity margins, diversity and import
dependence.
4.1.6. Respondents don’t agree about the importance of
‘traditional’ indicators
This theme also relates to respondents’ views regarding how
to conceptualise energy security. Respondents did not agree with
each other on the importance of some indicators which are tradi-
tionally used to assess energy security such as import dependence
and diversity. Several respondents stated that import dependence
and diversity are some of the major things which spring to mind
when they consider energy security, and spoke of the need to hedge
against unpredictable risks by reducing dependence or by increas-
ing diversity. For example:
To me, this is the nub of the debate. We can’t plant the whole of
the decarbonisation agenda on one technology, only to find out
it can’t be deployed or we’ve misunderstood public acceptabil-
ity, or we can’t get cost reduction. (Respondent V, civil servant,
government department)
You can’t control what another country’s going to do. So you’re
increasing risk by relying on imports. (Respondent T, director,
energy co-op)
However, there was much disagreement on this point, and some
respondents were very sceptical about the usefulness of these two
indicators; for example:
It’s one of these dogmas at the minute, that everyone says,
“future system—diverse, diverse, diverse”. I’m less sure about
that. I look at France for example, that has what seems to be a
very secure system, has been for years and years, and it’s about
as un-diverse a system as you could get. You need a mix that
works. . . (Respondent A, head of policy, advisory body)
To say ‘we can’t rely on those pesky foreigners’ is an attitude
that’s kind of dodgy anyway, it assumes every other country in
the world is ganging up against us, basically paranoia. (Respon-
dent Q, civil servant, government department)
It is interesting to note that both these aspects primarily relate
to physical supplies of electricity and/or fuels. A number of respon-
dents suggested that there is a need to look beyond this aspect
of energy security, for instance towards issues relating to flexibil-
ity: as well as being able to meet demand under normal operating
conditions, the electricity system also needs to be able to respond
in a timely manner to unexpected changes in the supply/demand
balance. This is reflected in the ‘demand’ theme in Section 4.1.3.
4.1.7. Are the lights going out?
Finally, a common recurring theme arose regarding current risks
to electricity security, and whether or not the UK really is in danger
of a serious supply disruption in the near future. On this, there was
quite a lot of disagreement, with some arguing that the UK system
is not currently resilient enough to certain risks such as storms,
whilst others argued that risks have been overplayed by politicians
who are nervous about the idea of the lights going out. However,
there was consensus that a big unplanned interruption could have
a major impact on energy policy, and possibly on the legitimacy
of the transition. Respondent S (head of policy, network company)
said:
If there are more outages, if the lights go out, the public won’t
accept the policies going forward. They’ll say that’s a failure of
policy, and then you’re gonna have to change radically, and some
of those changes could fundamentally contradict the direction
you’re currently taking.
Several respondents agreed that the most important outcome
in the event of a major disruption would be who got the blame:
if the public perceived that low-carbon energy was to blame, this
could seriously derail attempts to decarbonise the electricity sys-
tem. Many respondents also noted that energy security as a term
or concept is utilised by many different stakeholders as part of
their negotiating or influencing position, even if they don’t actually
believe that the lights are going to go out.
4.2. Quantitative results
Respondents were asked to rate each pre-defined issue on a 1–5
scale according to how important they felt each to be for electricity
security in a low-carbon context, with 1 denoting minimal impor-
tance and 5 denoting critical importance.3 Fig. 1 shows the mean
3
Note: only 24 of the 25 participants returned quantitative answers.
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5
Fuel depleƟon
Materials depleƟon
Water usage
Import dependence
Oversupply
Transmission upgrade cost
Fuel poverty
Electricity generaƟon costs
DistribuƟon upgrade cost
Import stability
Import diversity
Public parƟcipaƟon
Carbon emissions
Direct opposiƟon
Fuel type diversity
Household electricity bills
Public approval raƟngs
Electricity storage
Flexible demand
InterconnecƟon
Response and reserve capability
De-rated capacity margins
Score: 5=high importance, 1=minimal importance
Mean
Fig. 1. Mean and standard deviation of scores across all respondents, ranked according to importance for electricity security in a low-carbon context on a 1–5 scale (1 = minimal
importance; 5 = critical importance).

7. E. Cox / Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11 7
score and standard deviation for each issue across all respondents.
The graph shows that the issues relating to availability, flexibil-
ity and society were felt to be the most important, whereas most
of the ‘environmental sustainability’ issues received lower scores
on average. This may be linked to the fact that some experts have a
more narrow understanding of energy security which does not nec-
essarily include environmental dimensions, as discussed in Section
4.1.5. The standard deviations also illustrate that the areas of great-
est contention generally relate to affordability and sustainability.
In particular, fuel poverty and carbon emissions stand out as being
particularly contentious. The reasons for this were discussed in Sec-
tion 4.1.5, where it was suggested that interviewees appeared to be
basing their responses on differing criteria for deciding what mat-
ters for energy security. The ‘annual bills’ and ‘generation costs’
topics were also fairly contentious, illustrating general disagree-
ment over whether ‘affordability’ should be viewed as part of a
broad conceptualisation of energy security. Fig. 1 also confirms that
there is disagreement over the importance of some of the more tra-
ditional indicators of energy security such as imports and diversity,
as discussed in Section 4.1.6.
As stated in the methodology, the purpose of asking respondents
to give rankings was not to generate detailed mathematical maps or
to attempt to aggregate preferences. However, a comparison of the
results from stakeholders from each type of organisation (e.g. util-
ity, academia, NGO etc.) can provide a preliminary overview of the
extent to which different stakeholders from the same type of organ-
isation generally agreed or disagreed with each other. Appendix
A in Supplementary materials illustrates this with graphical rep-
resentations of the scores given by each individual respondent,
grouped according to type of organisation. There was found to be
significant spread amongst responses for most of the issues dis-
cussed, no matter which type of organisation. The most contentious
issues (i.e. those with high standard deviations) provided the clear-
est examples of this; for all the most contentious issues, individual
responses within the same type of organisation tended to be very
widely spread, and no clear patterns emerge. For example, the
responses regarding ‘fuel poverty’ were often ranked 1 by one or
two respondents from each type of organisation, and 5 by one or
two other respondents from the same type of organisation. Similar
patterns can be observed for other contentious issues, for exam-
ple ‘annual bills’, ‘generation costs’, and ‘carbon emissions’. Issues
for which there was lower spread between respondents within the
same type of organisation were generally those for which there was
generally higher agreement overall; for example, aspects relating
to flexibility (which were generally perceived to be highly impor-
tant) and aspects relating to network upgrade costs (which were
generally perceived to be of medium importance). Clearly, there
are limitations in this quantitative analysis, mainly caused by the
small sample size which means that it is not possible to infer which
contextual factors may be most influential over their preferences;
nevertheless, this is an interesting preliminary finding which would
benefit from further research, for instance by carrying out larger
surveys.
5. Discussion
5.1. How broad is too broad?
The results from the interviews show that there are signif-
icant differences between experts in what issues they feel are
most important or material for electricity security. Roughly half
of the respondents believed that a broad view of security should be
taken encompassing aspects such as affordability and environmen-
tal sustainability, whilst roughly half felt that these broader aspects
should be seen as separate objectives, trade-offs or complicating
factors. It is interesting to compare this to debates in the litera-
ture: opinions are somewhat divided over whether environmental
sustainability should be viewed as an aspect of energy security (see
e.g. [2,29,42,55,67,83]), but the majority of widely-cited definitions
include the affordability dimension (e.g. [12,67,54,117]). There was
also considerable contention over some of the more ‘traditional’
indicators of energy security such as import dependence and diver-
sity. Again, this disagreement is echoed in the literature: numerous
studies rely on diversity and import dependence as core metrics for
measuring energy security (e.g. [34,48,51,59,67,91,111]), yet there
is also scepticism in the literature about whether these are neces-
sary or sufficient indicators (e.g. [46,50,113]). It appears that some
of the differences in responses may be explained by the different
ways in which different experts judge what is important. Some
respondents focused upon what they perceived to be current risks
to the system or areas in which policy has an obligation to act,
leading to a preference for aspects such as public acceptability and
fuel poverty. Meanwhile, others focused on issues which are sim-
ple and direct or more easily quantifiable, leading to a preference
for aspects such as diversity and capacity margins. This is a rather
preliminary finding which would benefit from further research.
In the face of such disagreement from respondents over such
core questions as the importance of affordability, sustainability,
diversity and import dependence for the security of low-carbon
electricity systems, the results from the interviews therefore raise
questions over the extent to which it is desirable or practical to
attempt to create generalisable frameworks for assessing the secu-
rity of energy systems, especially when attempting to achieve
generalisability on a global scale. This is strengthened by the results
which emphasise the fact that what is perceived to be impor-
tant for energy security is highly dependent on spatial and system
context. It is interesting to compare this to a tendency in the lit-
erature to attempt to make security assessment frameworks as
universal as possible (see e.g. [31,50,54,59,116]). In the presence
of competing (and potentially intractable) perspectives on energy
security, this paper therefore suggests that energy security assess-
ments should be explicit about which perspective they follow (for
example, whether to include affordability and sustainability), and
should also acknowledge the impact that opposing perspectives
could have on the results. Whilst specific suggestions for improving
energy security might vary amongst different countries and differ-
ent sets of actors, this recommendation (as well as the methods
outlined in this paper for exploring such perspectives) is applicable
to energy security assessments in any context.
5.2. Areas of agreement
Despite the array of different perspectives and the challenges
that this presents for assessments of energy security, there was
commonality evident in the strong emphasis placed by respondents
on measures of flexibility on both the supply-side and the demand-
side (i.e. the ability to increase or decrease supply or demand
in a timely manner in order to balance the system, in response
to expected or unexpected perturbations in the supply/demand
balance). In this way, experts can be seen to be placing empha-
sis on responses to insecurity, rather than focusing on minimising
possible causes of insecurity; this is highly interesting, because a
systematic literature review by Jonsson et al. [62] found that the
existing energy security literature tends to focus overwhelmingly
on causes rather than responses. This raises the possibility that pre-
vious attempts to assess the security of electricity systems may
have been giving preferential treatment to systems which perform
badly for flexibility but well for things like import dependence.
Respondents felt that flexibility on both the supply-side and the
demand-side should be prioritised when assessing system secu-
rity, and therefore it could be argued that realising the potential

8. 8 E. Cox / Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11
benefits of improved flexibility should be a policy priority. It is
worth noting that this is not necessarily a UK-specific finding: in
a context of a challenging low-carbon transition (which may entail
numerous uncertainties), the potential benefits of flexibility for sys-
tem balancing and hedging against unexpected disruptions would
likely apply to any low-carbon pathway (especially for industri-
alised nations). It is worth noting that diversity could also be a
measure of flexibility, because of the ability to switch from one
source of power to another if one fails. It is therefore interesting
that respondents were more divided on the question of the impor-
tance of diversity than they were on flexibility measures such as
response-and-reserve, flexible demand, storage and interconnec-
tion (as shown in Fig. 1); the reason for this may be connected to
the question of moving energy security discussions beyond tradi-
tional indicators such as diversity and imports, which was a core
theme identified from the interviews (Section 4.1.6).
Further agreement amongst respondents was found in the
emphasis placed on the importance of securing adequate invest-
ment in infrastructure, including stressing the importance of
political stability in order to increase investor confidence. Concerns
about a possible lack of sufficient investment in energy infras-
tructure are echoed in the energy systems and security literature
(e.g. [14,31,79]). In order to generate the kind of political stability
required to meet the challenges facing the UK electricity system,
respondents discussed the need for long-term planning and a guid-
ing ‘vision’ for the future, including improving political clarity on
the level of commitment to the UK’s medium- and long-term decar-
bonisation targets. Some respondents went even further and stated
that this political feasibility would only be achievable in the con-
text of a ‘social contract’ for the transition, another idea which is
well grounded in the existing literature (see e.g. [41,75,76]). These
kinds of issues are clearly important for security, but they are chal-
lenging to assess and even more challenging to quantify, which
probably explains their lack of inclusion in security assessment
frameworks thus far. Again, this is not necessarily a UK-specific
finding: many other industrialised countries, especially elsewhere
in Western Europe, are experiencing similar pressures on energy
investment and infrastructure.
Discussions of ‘political feasibility’ are highly linked to the
theme of ‘difficult choices’ for policy-makers and the public (Sec-
tion 4.1.4). It is well-recognised in the energy security literature
that there may be unavoidable trade-offs between various energy
system objectives, especially in a low-carbon context due to the
additional complications for energy security caused by the inclu-
sion of the carbon reduction imperative (e.g. [47,60]). It has been
suggested by some that the decarbonisation agenda is becoming
more problematic and divisive for UK policy-makers [20,27]; how-
ever, the policy literature continues to talk of achieving a ‘balanced’
trilemma and tends to play down the idea of difficult choices, prob-
ably because of the legally-binding nature of the carbon targets
[34–36]. If, as suggested by several respondents, politicians are too
accountable for losses of supply which makes them err on the side
of caution (Section 4.1.7), they may be highly unwilling to broach
the subject of changing the way in which consumers in the UK
use electricity [87,95]. This could impact several aspects of security
which were felt to be important by many of the respondents, such
as maximising flexibility of demand and participation and engage-
ment on the part of consumers. This particular finding is essentially
rooted in the specific UK policy context; therefore it would be inter-
esting for further comparative work to compare this with other
policy contexts.
5.3. Does ‘where you stand depend on where you sit’?
As shown in Section 4.2, the results show no clear alignment
between experts’ perspectives and the type of organisation for
which they work. The idea that perspectives are usually aligned
with the organisation for which people work is often referred to as
“where you stand depends on where you sit”, or Miles’ Law. Influ-
ential work by Allison suggested that “for large classes of issues, the
stance of a particular player can be predicted with high reliability
from information concerning his seat” [1: 711]. Several empirical
studies corroborate Miles’ law, with reference to a diverse range
of fields (see e.g. [11,110,112,114]). However, it is also necessary to
conceptualise where people ‘sit’ as not just an expert’s professional
position but also the wider context, which could include previous
or personal affiliations [17]. The fact that the experts interviewed
for this study did not conform to Miles’ law suggests that there
were other contextual factors which were having a more control-
ling influence over their decisions than the organisation for which
they work. It may be because all the experts chosen for this study
possess extensive experience and in-depth knowledge of energy
issues, and therefore possess complex, nuanced and widely differ-
ing opinions; the qualitative data outlined in Section 4.1 support
this. This result suggests that individuals aren’t being co-opted by
the ‘party line’ of their various organisations, and also suggests that
measures targeted to appeal to specific types of organisation may
be doomed to failure. Clearly, the small sample size means that it
is difficult to interrogate these findings in more depth, and it is not
really possible to infer which contextual factors may be most influ-
ential over their preferences; nevertheless, this is an interesting
preliminary finding which would benefit from further research.
5.4. Limitations and areas for further research
This paper has interviewed UK energy experts to elicit opinions
on what matters for electricity security in the UK context, because
it has been shown that conceptions of energy security are highly
correlated with national contexts. The small sample size and the
single-country focus generate some limitations to the extent to
which the results of this study can be generalised to larger popu-
lations or to other national contexts, meaning that the topic would
benefit from further research involving a much larger sample size in
order that statistical tests of correlation or clustering may be used.
However, whilst some of the specific empirical findings may not be
generalisable, the general approach and methodology would be;
therefore comparisons with other national contexts (for instance,
by carrying out similar studies with energy experts from other
industrialised nations) would potentially yield interesting compar-
ative results, as would a cross-national study.
This study interviewed energy experts using a pre-defined set
of topics, following methods used in other studies designed to elicit
opinions on energy security (e.g. [13,100]). However, this method-
ology leaves the responses vulnerable to potential framing effects,
in which some of the pre-defined topics may have sparked inter-
est from the respondents which would not have been apparent
if the questions had been framed in a more open-ended manner.
Therefore it would be beneficial for further research to elicit expert
opinions using more open-ended questions, for instance by asking
similar sets of experts to define energy security in their own words.
Finally, it would be interesting to explore in more depth some of the
findings from these interviews: in particular, whilst experts gener-
ally agreed that infrastructure investments are needed in order to
realise a secure low-carbon transition, this paper has not explored
whether experts agreed on the types of investments which would
be needed. It would therefore be interesting to interrogate experts’
views on the desired balance between supply-side and demand-
side measures, support for mature versus emerging technologies, or
the potential tension between centralised and decentralised infras-
tructure options.

9. E. Cox / Energy Research & Social Science 21 (2016) 1–11 9
6. Conclusions
Energy security is a complex and multifaceted topic, which
despite the blossoming literature on conceptualisations continues
to resist a commonly-accepted definition. Therefore this paper is an
attempt to open up this discussion, actively exploring and incor-
porating the perspectives of multiple stakeholders (who may be
influential in policy processes), in order to get a grasp on what
aspects of energy security are felt to be most important, with a focus
on the security of the electricity system in the context of the imper-
ative to reduce carbon emissions. Interviews were carried out with
25 experts from the UK energy sector. Participants were offered a
list of electricity security issues drawn from the existing literature,
and asked to discuss how important they felt these are for assess-
ing electricity security, with a particular focus on security in the
context of a transition to a low-carbon electricity system.
The results from the interviews show that there is a need to
accept the existence of multiple perspectives and to at least attempt
to take them into account when discussing energy security, instead
of focusing down on a small number of simple quantifiable indica-
tors or metrics. This paper has demonstrated that the challenges
of attempting to create generalisable energy security indices or
assessment frameworks are huge. In the presence of competing
(and potentially intractable) perspectives on energy security, this
paper therefore suggests that energy security assessments should
be explicit about which perspective they follow (for example,
whether to include affordability and sustainability), and should
acknowledge the impact that opposing perspectives could have on
the results. Whilst specific suggestions for improving energy secu-
rity might vary amongst different countries and different sets of
actors, this recommendation is broadly applicable to energy secu-
rity assessments in any context.
This paper has revealed an array of conceptualisations and a
lack of any clear pattern determining experts’ perspectives, as well
as some competing worldviews which are potentially intractable.
However, despite the challenges that this clearly creates for pol-
icy, certain measures were widely suggested as being sensible
for improving energy security by a majority of participants from
a range of organisations. Energy security policy should incorpo-
rate measures which can respond to threats or insecurity, instead
of focusing on reducing causes of insecurity; therefore a focus on
flexibility on both the demand-side and the supply-side would be
beneficial. There should also be increased focus on measures which
can bring about co-benefits in multiple areas, such as reduction
in overall energy demand. Finally, it is critical to ensure adequate
investment in infrastructure, which may require political stability
and long-term planning; these aspects are challenging to measure
and therefore have received a lack of attention in energy security
assessments in the past. Although the focus of this paper was on
energy security in the UK, these findings echo the pressures that
energy systems in many other industrialised countries are experi-
encing.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported under a CASE award, funded jointly
by EPSRC and E.on Technologies (Ratcliffe) Ltd. The sponsors had
no involvement in the design or delivery of this paper. I would
also like to thank all the anonymous reviewers, whose constructive
and insightful comments helped enormously to improve this paper.
Further thanks go to Jim Watson (UKERC), Florian Kern (SPRU) and
Matt Copeland (E.on) for their insights and continued support.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2016.06.020.
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