Discrepancy and discrete energy are two of the most standard ways to measure the quality of the distribution of a finite point set, and it is very well known that there is strong interplay between these concepts. One particular important example of such interplay is the classical Stolarsky principle which ties together the pairwise sum of distances and the spherical cap discrepancy. In the current talk we shall survey various manifestations of this connection between discrepancy and energy minimization.