On 21st October 2025, Dr. Katarína Sárvári, a researcher at the Climate Policy Institute, delivered an in-depth seminar at MCC Győr, offering a comprehensive analysis of how energy security has evolved from a focus on uninterrupted access to oil and gas at stable prices to a multi-dimensional concept encompassing resilience, sustainability, technological innovation, and social equity, and emphasizing that modern energy security requires systems capable of withstanding disruptions, recovering quickly from shocks, and reliably supplying electricity to support highly electrified societies.
Looking forward to 2050, Dr. Sárvári identified three major forces reshaping energy security: the creation of new international alliances to secure access to clean energy technologies, the integration of new technologies such as solar and wind, battery storage, green and blue hydrogen, small modular reactors, smart grids, and AI-driven energy management, and emerging risks including cyberattacks, climate-induced extreme weather, and social inequities, all of which require energy systems to be adaptive, resilient, and inclusive, capable of balancing availability, affordability, sustainability, and fairness, especially as global electricity demand rises sharply due to electrification of transport, heating, and heavy industry, and as AI and data centers contribute increasingly significant loads.
Dr. Sárvári also emphasized the strategic importance of technological innovation, noting the dramatic cost reductions in solar PV and wind, the growing reliance on battery storage despite supply-chain risks for critical minerals, the potential of hydrogen to decarbonize difficult sectors, and the resurgence of nuclear energy, including Hungary’s Paks Nuclear Power Plant and planned expansion, while stressing that digitalization, smart grids, and regional cooperation are essential to ensure reliability, flexibility, and resilience, particularly in the face of uneven global demand growth and climate-related pressures.
Concluding her presentation, she outlined a forward-looking roadmap for energy security, emphasizing integrated governance, cross-border cooperation, and large-scale financing as essential to achieving resilient, inclusive, and sustainable energy systems, and highlighting that the choices made in the coming decade will define not only the structure of global energy systems but also the stability, prosperity, and environmental sustainability of societies worldwide, making energy security a central pillar of 21st-century statecraft and international cooperation.
