"Energy is any quantity - a number with the appropriate units (in the SI system, Joules) - that is conserved as the result of the fact that the laws of physics don't depend on the time when phenomena occur, i.e. as a consequence of the time-translational symmetry. This definition, linked to Emmy Noether's fundamental theorem, is the most universal among the accurate definitions of the concept of energy."
http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/3014/what-is-energy-where-did-it-come-from