Making Corporate “Energy Self-Sufficiency” a Management Metric— A Demand-Side-Led Energy Strategy in the Wake of a Strait of Hormuz Crisis —

September 2026 Senior Expert Kenichi Yoshikawa
In the previous paper, "Redefining Japanese Companies’ Energy Chains in Light of the Strait of Hormuz Crisis" we examined how geopolitical risk propagates simultaneously through both the price and the volume of fuel and electricity. Constraints on fuel supply push up the cost of power generation and heat supply, which in turn reach end users through electricity and gas tariffs and contract terms. If companies simply revert to their previous procurement structures once a crisis has passed, the same vulnerabilities will resurface in the next one. The question companies should be asking is not merely whether their procurement prices are high or low, but how far their business operations depend on externally purchased electricity, fuel, and heat—and how much volatility or disruption in that supply they can withstand.
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Conclusion of this article

　To state this paper's conclusion up front: corporate preparedness for energy crises must shift from choosing the cheapest supplier to designing one's own energy structure. This means making the degree of dependence on external procurement visible and combining on-site generation, waste heat recovery, battery storage, demand-side control, and other measures to improve both economic efficiency in normal times and business continuity in emergencies. In this paper, we call the management metric for gauging that state "energy self-sufficiency." The paper organizes the issues companies should begin addressing now around four points: (1) the structural changes brought about by electricity system reform and market liberalization; (2) the expansion of distributed energy resources (DER), centered on battery storage; (3) the managerial significance of energy self-sufficiency spanning electricity, fuel, and heat; and (4) the energy management capabilities required to implement it…

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