Reframing Energy Security in the Clean Energy Transition: An Analysis of Cross-Border Risks and Solutions

As energy systems worldwide transition toward renewables, energy security is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Changing geopolitical dynamics and volatile energy markets are reshaping the risk landscape, making cross-border risks more relevant than ever. Yet, these risks are poorly captured by traditional energy security indices that reduce the security of supply to a domestic–foreign binary discussion, masking how changes in import origin and trade decentralisation generate new cross-border interdependencies in a renewable economy. This review unpacks these changes through two main analytical approaches. It conducts a bibliometric analysis of the energy security literature published over the past 45 years to identify key themes and trends, followed by a systematic qualitative and in-depth review of 55 relevant studies. The findings highlight three main trends. First, it shows that the concept of energy security has broadened to include cross-border interdependencies in renewable supply chains, energy infrastructure investment, and energy trade. Second, the growing role of China in energy security research and global supply chains challenges the dominant Western energy security frameworks. Third, it highlights how technology choices, the pace of the fossil-to-renewables transition, and supply-demand trade-offs moderate the effectiveness of energy security strategies.