[BLOG] Oil Security: A central focus in Africa.
The political turmoil in Northern Africa and the Middle East has demonstrated how fragile energy security in particular oil supply security is for all of us. And just weeks ago, consensus among IEA members released oil stocks in the face of a continuing disruption from Libya, and as a bridging action to further production increases from Saudi Arabia.
The move has helped to reassure markets to the benefit of the entire global economy. It also highlights, above all, the importance of unity among all major market players during such crises.
There is therefore the need for closer co-operation among all energy market players in the area of energy security including emergency response is therefore clear.
However, when talking about energy security in the future, electricity security will be increasingly central. On the supply side, sustainable power generation, secure supplies of generating fuels, grid technology and integration, and energy access will all be key to achieving secure power provision while still striving toward climate change targets. On the demand side, energy efficiency will be equally important.
But with such growing demand across both oil and electricity generation, and the need to employ new technologies to meet goals, we can say with confidence that the age of cheap energy is simply over.
I recently wrote an article on Energy Efficiency Governance which highlighted the importance of public private sector cooperation on energy efficiency. The experience from pioneering effort on private sector cooperation has helped show the way forward in terms of future public-private cooperation on delivering energy efficiency policies.
On a global scale, we can also be sure that no matter which challenge we are facing, we have to tackle it cooperatively.
This article was originally posted on Africa Oil & Mining Network
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