From what I understand, vacuum decay involves the release of potential energy, but where does this energy come from? Is it created in the moment and how does it affect the energy already present in the universe?
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The underlying assumption is that some process in the very early universe stored energy in a false vacuum state. This energy is then released when the false vacuum state decays. So the decay of the false vacuum state does not create energy, it simply releases energy that was already stored as potential energy in the false vacuum state. A complete accounting of the energy in the universe would have included this potential energy.
By analogy, a ball rolling down a hill does not create energy, it simply converts potential energy into kinetic energy - and this potential energy was previously stored in the state of the ball/hill by pushing the ball up the hill in the first place.
