Oxford Energy Day 2026 – Towards resilient energy systems: research, policy and practice

Oxford Energy Day took place Thursday 17th September at the Univerirsity's Mathematical Institute.

The theme for this year’s Oxford Energy Day was:

Towards resilient energy systems: research, policy and practice

Improving energy system resilience is essential at a time of fossil fuel price shocks, rapid socio-technical change and increased dependence on electricity in multiple critical infrastructures. From advances in individual technologies, to whole systems modelling and socio-political analysis, Oxford Energy Day offers a range of insights on increasing the resilience of our evolving energy systems. Resilience will be considered in terms of the ability of an energy system to anticipate, absorb, recover from, and adapt to disruptions, and we also ask resilience to what, over which timescales, and from whose perspective?

Themes explored by the speakers and poster presenters included:

• Technologies for resilience: batteries & storage, new materials, renewable energy generation, energy efficiency, information systems, control

• Economics for resilience: market design, innovation, business opportunities

• Resilience and energy security: electrification, demand reduction, diversification, the role of fossil fuels

• Organising for resilience: data flows, governance, government & policy

• Resilience for whom?: business, community and household perspectives

• Resilience and the natural environment: future climates, risks, systems & feedbacks

Professor of Informatics David Wallom was a panelist on the plenary panel session, which was chared by ZERO Institute director Professor Paul Shearing.

Professor David Wallom