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Ensuring a reliable supply of energy is regarded as a prime responsibility of governments. Traditionally, the main risk to security of energy supply has been Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, often from politically unstable regions. Some studies project that European dependence on imports for its oil requirements will rise to 90% by 2020. This project focuses on the risks to Europe’s energy supply, the costs of an energy supply disruption, and ways to insure against such costs.

Ensuring a reliable supply of energy is regarded as a prime responsibility of governments. Traditionally, the main risk to security of energy supply has been Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, often from politically unstable regions. Some studies project that European dependence on imports for its oil requirements will rise to 90% by 2020.

This project focuses on the risks to Europe’s energy supply, the costs of an energy supply disruption, and ways to insure against such costs.

The overall aim of the project is to develop, within a network of European researchers and research institutes, a methodology for identifying a potential micro-macro gap in energy security in Europe, and to provide, in co-operation with stakeholders, a first plausibility test of the suggested hypothesis.

To this end the proposed project develops a methodological framework for analysing micro- and macro security needs taking into consideration a number of factors that are influencing changes to the status quo in Europe. These include:

  • Europe’s rising dependence on imported fossil fuels;
  • the move towards liberalisation and thus the shifting of responsibility of protecting against supply disruptions from public bodies towards private operators that are now expected to pay an "insurance premium" to protect against supply interruptions and market competition;
  • Europe’s environmental obligations.

Upon consideration of the above, the project aspires to produce a first descriptive map of security challenges and economic agents’ responses in the supply and consumption chain, an indication of possible policy response and the research required to build the foundations for such responses.