UK ranks 41st in global energy security index, behind Romania and Ukraine
The UK is one of the least energy secure G7 countries, ranking behind the US, Canada, France, and Japan.
First-of-its-kind research co-authored by the former lead energy advisor at the White House finds that the UK is one of the least energy-secure wealthy countries in the world, coming 41st out of 187 countries and territories.
Shockingly, the UK ranks below lower-income countries like Romania, Azerbaijan, Serbia, and Ukraine.
The UK ranks in the bottom 7% of countries for control over its energy dispatch.
The UK’s energy insecurity reflects its reliance on wind and solar energy.
This is another symptom of the UK’s broken energy market, which has some of the highest energy costs in the developed world.
The UK ranks 41st in the world for energy security, lower than Romania, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine, reveals a new index by the Adam Smith Institute (ASI). The report is the first-ever annual global ranking of countries’ energy security and control, measuring their ability to produce or procure the energy they need for a safe and prosperous society.
With diesel prices hitting a record high this month, the UK is woefully unprepared for a global energy crisis or fuel shortage: it is only one place above Albania in the ranking and far below several of its European neighbours. The UK already has some of the highest energy prices in the developed world; its lack of control over its own energy supply will further hurt businesses and consumers around the country, especially in the case of a crisis.
The index takes into account the dispatchability of countries’ electricity generation, the diversity and security of their energy sources (including of their imports), and their GDP per capita. It is the first-ever index to annually rank nearly every country just based on their control on energy without distorting for decarbonisation.
Despite the UK’s high income and diversified energy sources, it ranks well below its international peers because of its vast overreliance on wind and solar energy: the UK ranks in the bottom 7% of all countries for control over its energy dispatch.
This is because the high proportion of wind and solar as a share of total electricity generated (36%, compared to 10% in Norway and 17% in the US) means that the UK has limited control over how much energy and electricity it chooses to produce. In the case of a fuel crisis it would not be able to adapt quickly with other sources to make up the shortfall, but would instead be at the mercy of the weather.
Despite its reliance on imports, the UK ranks above many of its peers in import security. This is because it diversifies its sources well and imports from countries that are at low risk of political instability. The UK’s main energy suppliers are Norway, the US, and the Netherlands; only 5% of its energy imports come from low-stability countries like Libya and Nigeria. This makes the UK’s low position even more staggering. Without its high income and strong import security, the UK would rank far lower: with a typical country's score for ability to pay it would fall to 96th, and with typical scores for both ability to pay and import security, to 107th.
However, this does not mean that being energy secure is only possible for countries with large domestic oil reserves: Switzerland, for example, has no domestic fossil fuel production and still ranks far higher than the UK, in 5th place, while Chad, a net energy exporter, is one of the lowest-ranked countries.
The path to energy security for the UK involves sensible policies: cease mandates and subsidies for wind and solar, build more nuclear and gas power plants, keep open and diversified trade relations, efforts to diversify its energy sources (including both renewables and fossil fuels), and deregulate energy infrastructure investment.
This is all the more urgent as the ongoing Ukraine and Iran conflicts make energy supply shortages more and more likely. The UK's reliance on weather-dependent energy leaves it more exposed than most G7 peers, remaining at the mercy of the weather, reserve supply, and global prices – which places her entire economy on red alert.
Comments:
Andrew Bowie MP, Shadow Energy Secretary, said:
“The Adam Smith Institute has, with this index, exposed Britain’s perilous position and this should serve as a wake-up call for all. In a world that is growing in uncertainty and those who wish to do us harm are emboldened, we cannot afford to be left in the dark.
“This need not be the case however; Britain has the resources and skills to deliver abundant energy and do so securely under the correct circumstances. Renewable technologies must play a part in that but not alone. We need to deliver new nuclear – at pace and at lower cost – and we need to be allowed to exploit the vast resources that remain in our North Sea.
“By doing so we can ensure that Britain's energy is secure and that when we flip a switch, we know that the lights will come on.”
Richard Tice MP, Deputy Leader at Reform UK, said:
“The UK is humiliated on this international energy security index.
“How can a G7 nation like the UK have worse energy security than the war-torn Ukraine? How can we be in the bottom 7% for the security of energy dispatch?
“The answer is Net Stupid Zero has caused this, with a dangerous over reliance on wind and solar. Reform will scrap Net Zero and reindustrialise Britain with cheap reliable energy.”
Dr. Oliver McPherson-Smith, Senior Fellow at the Adam Smith Institute and former lead energy advisor in the White House, said:
“Energy security is national security. In an increasingly volatile global arena, this index is a wake-up call for the Government. Norway’s #1 ranking puts Britain to shame. Norway and Britain sit side-by-side across a maritime border in the North Sea, but are 39 rungs apart in terms of energy security.
“Rather than continuing to pick winners and losers at the expense of energy security, the Government should enable consumer choice and competition across energy sources.”
Jasper Ostle, Head of Research and Education at the Adam Smith Institute, said:
“As we shift towards a multipolar balance of power, governments worldwide have come to consider energy security as a distinct objective. This index hopes to contribute an economic foundation to this principle.
“In the UK’s context, the message is clear: our reliance on non-dispatchable electricity in wind and solar energy is putting the UK at greater risk than necessary. The solutions are simple: cease subsidising wind and solar energy, end the moratorium on new fossil fuel extraction licenses, and go full steam ahead towards supply-side energy reform.”
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For further comments or to arrange an interview, contact press@adamsmith.org | 07985 540467.
Methodology:
The Adam Smith Institute Global Energy Security Index 2026 ranks 187 countries and territories on four equally-weighted components. Each is scored from 0 to 100:
Dispatchability: the share of electricity generated from sources that can be dispatched on demand (nuclear, fossil fuels, hydro, geothermal and bioenergy), as opposed to intermittent sources: wind, solar, tide and wave.
Diversity: how evenly a country’s primary energy use is spread across oil, gas, coal, nuclear and renewables, measured with a Herfindahl–Hirschman Index, an industry-standard concentration/diversity index.
Import security: For net importers, the score falls with 1) the share of energy imported adjusted for 2) how concentrated their suppliers are and 3) the political stability of both the importer and their suppliers. Net energy exporters score 100.
Ability to pay: GDP per capita (log scale), as a proxy for a country’s capacity to procure energy on global markets.
The index uses only publicly available data:
U.S. Energy Information Administration’s International Energy Statistics, for electricity generation and energy production and consumption;
CEPII-BACI database of bilateral trade, built from UN Comtrade, for energy imports by supplier;
World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators and World Development Indicators, for political stability and GDP per capita.
All data comes from 2024 iterations, the most recent year with complete, comparable coverage for almost every country. International energy statistics are published with a lag, so global indices routinely use data one to two years old. The index uses one complete global source for each measure to keep countries comparable.
The Adam Smith Institute is one of the world’s leading think tanks. It was ranked first in the world among independent think tanks and as the best domestic and international economic policy think tank in the UK by the University of Pennsylvania. Independent, non-profit and non-partisan, the Institute is at the forefront of making the case for free markets and a free society, through education, research, publishing, and media outreach.