Record Renewables, Rising Chaos: The Inescapable Case For Energy Resilience

The numbers arriving on energy leaders' desks this spring tee up a policy challenge. Renewable energy now accounts for nearly half of global power capacity, following the largest single-year addition ever recorded: 692GW in 2025, according to IRENA. In the same year, solar and wind overtook coal to become the largest source of electricity globally.

Nonetheless, the IEA's Executive Director has described the current situation in the Middle East as "the greatest threat to global energy security in history”. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of global oil and LNG passes, has become a major point of instability. The effects are already acute: Europe entered the crisis with gas storage at a three-year low and – with Qatari LNG supply now severely disrupted – faces its largest-ever summer restocking task. In Asia, reduced Gulf refinery exports have already triggered fuel shortages and airline surcharges.

Policymakers in the US and the UK have responded to these developments very differently, with one expanding fossil fuel supply to protect the near term and the other accelerating the energy transition to reduce long-term dependence. The Trump administration has reached deals with energy developers to switch their investments from offshore wind to fossil fuel projects, while in the UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband is doubling down on net zero. Both responses treat the problem as binary, but for corporate energy leaders, this is the wrong framing.

The issue is less about fossil fuels versus renewables, but rather how exposed critical business operations are to energy-related disruption. Framed in this way, two key actions become more pressing:

• Audit where disruption would hurt the most.
  Leaders should start their resilience strategy by identifying where energy disruption could create the greatest business risk, whether it’s industrial processes reliant on natural gas, sites exposed to volatile power prices or suppliers vulnerable to fuel cost spikes. There is no single solution: while renewable investments can improve resilience, these projects can also face supply disruption if key technologies rely on concentrated supply chains. Energy leaders’ priority should be to understand where volatility could affect profit margins or operational continuity, and reduce that exposure.
• Invest in flexibility before the next disruption arrives.
  The businesses best insulated from energy shocks are those with the most operational flexibility. On-site generation, battery storage, demand-side response and long-term PPAs reduce dependence on volatile wholesale markets and fragile import routes. These investments protect margins, strengthen continuity and create pricing certainty – benefits that now align closely within the risk conversations boards are already having. As risk appetite shifts, the more pressing question is whether waiting to invest leaves the business further exposed.

The direction of corporate energy strategy has not changed. Decarbonization targets, cost pressures and regulatory requirements were already pushing organizations towards lower fossil fuel exposure. What has changed is how these investments are being evaluated: the current disruption has made the cost of import dependency concrete and immediate. For energy leaders building the case for resilience investment, now is the time to capitalize on that shift in boardroom conversations.

For further insights, read Strategic Focus: Roadmap To Energy Resilience.