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Energy Security within the Nexus of Risk, Resilience and Sustainability: Antinomy or Panacea?

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "C: Energy Economics and Policy".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 May 2022) | Viewed by 22184

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Head Technology Assessment Group, Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen-PSI, Switzerland
Interests: comparative risk assessment; sustainability; energy security; critical infrastructure protection; multicriteria decision analysis; energy policy; scenario analysis; resilience; databases; GIS
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Guest Editor
Technology Assessment Group, Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis, Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen-PSI, Switzerland
Interests: energy policy; resilience assessment; climate change mitigation; sustainable development; risk analysis; operational research; multicriteria decision analysis; decision support systems; robustness analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It has been widely recognized that human civilization is over-exploiting resources at an ever-increasing speed and at highly unsustainable levels. This is particularly true for the energy sector and leads to unprecedented impacts with regard to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. This Special Issue focuses on the central role of energy security and how it is interconnected in a broader perspective to the concepts of sustainability, resilience, and decision making under risk and uncertainty. Within the context of the global energy transition toward a low-carbon and net-zero emissions energy system, shifts in technology, demand and supply patterns, geopolitics, etc., thus lead to increased and new security risks that are also linked to current and future infrastructure, resource availability and use, and the intersection with cybersecurity and hybrid threats, among others.

For this Special Issue, we invite contributions that look at energy security from different viewpoints. For example, evaluation of potential trade-offs and synergies with the Sustainability Development Goals (SDG), geopolitical transformations generated by the rise of renewables and the decline of fossil fuels, and how these changes can contribute to a more resilient future energy system. Furthermore, we welcome articles on the implications of future energy and climate scenarios on energy security, including consideration of extreme scenarios and external shocks that are analyzed either quantitatively (e.g., tails of probabilistic distributions) or qualitatively (e.g., people’s perceptions and knowledge). Lastly, we encourage submissions that propose decision support frameworks to identify optimal portfolios of energy policies to achieve deep decarbonization goals and to humanize the energy transition by reducing implementation and consequential risks for society.

Dr. Peter Burgherr
Dr. Eleftherios Siskos
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • Energy security
  • Energy sector
  • Risk
  • Sustainability
  • Resilience
  • Critical infrastructure
  • Geopolitics
  • Energy transition
  • Scenario analysis
  • Cybersecurity
  • Hybrid threats
  • Multicriteria Decision Analysis (MCDA)
  • Robustness analysis
  • Policy and decision making

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 1837 KiB  
Article
Pathways to Overcoming Natural Gas Dependency on Russia—The German Case
by Christoph Halser and Florentina Paraschiv
Energies 2022, 15(14), 4939; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15144939 - 6 Jul 2022
Cited by 38 | Viewed by 8381
Abstract
The war in Ukraine has sensitized German policy makers towards the negative economic impact of a curtailment of natural gas flows from Russia. Given its large import dependency, Germany has implemented regulatory measures for mitigating a possible gas shortage and is seeking to [...] Read more.
The war in Ukraine has sensitized German policy makers towards the negative economic impact of a curtailment of natural gas flows from Russia. Given its large import dependency, Germany has implemented regulatory measures for mitigating a possible gas shortage and is seeking to diversify from pipeline imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). In this context, we provide a comprehensive review of the natural gas crisis in Europe and place it in the context of the peculiar role of natural gas in Germany. We critically discuss the economic impact of an embargo, and assess demand and supply factors capable of mitigating a supply shortage. We derive a short-term import substitution potential of 13 bcm, assuming timely installation of Floating Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs). We discuss the potential for demand reductions in the power sector, in industry consumption, and in households, and estimate a combined maximum of 24.1 bcm. Under decreased industrial demand, the most optimistic scenario indicates an import gap of about 9 bcm for a one-year perspective. Given our findings, we advocate for the delayed phasing out of coal and nuclear power, the accelerated deployment of renewable energy, and caution in the initial execution of storage quotas and restrictions to industrial consumers. Full article
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25 pages, 3638 KiB  
Article
A Framework to Assess the Resilience of Energy Systems Based on Quantitative Indicators
by Linas Martišauskas, Juozas Augutis, Ričardas Krikštolaitis, Rolandas Urbonas, Inga Šarūnienė and Vytis Kopustinskas
Energies 2022, 15(11), 4040; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15114040 - 31 May 2022
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2916
Abstract
The “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package highlights the need to create a resilient critical energy infrastructure in the European Union. Resilience is an emerging term to describe the energy system’s ability to withstand shocks caused by natural hazards, technical accidents, or intentional [...] Read more.
The “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package highlights the need to create a resilient critical energy infrastructure in the European Union. Resilience is an emerging term to describe the energy system’s ability to withstand shocks caused by natural hazards, technical accidents, or intentional threats. In this paper, a framework to assess the resilience of energy systems using quantitative indicators is presented. Two main groups of resilience indicators are proposed that depend on what is being measured within the energy system: capacity (attribute-based) indicators or performance in the presence of disruption (performance-based) indicators. This study concentrates on the first resilience phase, when the energy system has to absorb the impact of the shock. The approach considers various disruptions (both internal and external) as triggering events. There is a particular focus on future shocks affecting the prospective energy system, which will have changed with respect to the current one. The future foresight capabilities and potential of the selected resilience indicators are demonstrated using calculations for the Lithuanian energy system. The results revealed that the most important factors that impact energy system resilience are a rich electricity production mix and the diversification of both supply and production in the prospective energy system. Full article
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15 pages, 1669 KiB  
Article
Comprehensive Survey of Seismic Hazard at Geothermal Sites by a Meta-Analysis of the Underground Feedback Activation Parameter afb
by Arnaud Mignan, Marco Broccardo and Ziqi Wang
Energies 2021, 14(23), 7998; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14237998 - 30 Nov 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2102
Abstract
Global efforts to tame CO2 emissions include the use of renewable energy sources, such as geo-energy harnessing. However, injecting pressurised fluids into the deep underground can induce earthquakes, hence converting CO2-related risk into seismic risk. Induced seismicity hazard is characterised [...] Read more.
Global efforts to tame CO2 emissions include the use of renewable energy sources, such as geo-energy harnessing. However, injecting pressurised fluids into the deep underground can induce earthquakes, hence converting CO2-related risk into seismic risk. Induced seismicity hazard is characterised by the overall seismic activity afb that is normalised by the injected fluid volume V and the parameter b of the Gutenberg–Richter law. The (afb,b) set has so far been estimated for a dozen of reservoir stimulations, while at least 53 geothermal fluid stimulations are known to exist, based on our survey. Here, we mined the induced seismicity literature and were able to increase the number of estimates to 39 after calculating afb from related published parameters and by imputing b with its expectation where this parameter was missing (0.65 ≤ b ≤ 2.9, with mean 1.16). Our approach was a two-step procedure: we first reviewed the entire literature to identify seismic hazard information gaps and then did a meta-analysis to fill those gaps. We find that the mean and median afb estimates slightly decrease from afb ≈ −2.2 to afb = −2.9 and −2.4, respectively, and that the range of observations expands from −4.2 ≤ afb ≤ 0.4 to −8.9 ≤ afb ≤ 0.4, based on a comprehensive review unbiased towards high-seismicity experiments. Correcting for potential ambiguities in published parameters could further expand the range of possibilities but keep the mean and the median relatively close to original estimates, with afb ≈ −2.3 and −2.4, respectively. In terms of the number of earthquakes induced (function of 10afb), our meta-analysis suggests that it is about half the number that could previously be inferred from published afb estimates (i.e., half the seismic hazard). These results are hampered by high uncertainties, demonstrating the need to re-analyse past earthquake catalogues to remove any ambiguity and to systematically compute afb in future geothermal projects to reduce uncertainty in induced seismicity hazard assessment. Such uncertainties are so far detrimental to the further development of the technology. Full article
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14 pages, 257 KiB  
Article
Legal Aspects of Cybersecurity in the Energy Sector—Current State and Latest Proposals of Legislative Changes by the EU
by Michał Krzykowski
Energies 2021, 14(23), 7836; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14237836 - 23 Nov 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2701
Abstract
Due to the strategic nature of the energy sector, legal solutions to protect cross-border electricity and gas connections will be of particular importance. The author realizes that at the present stage of development, the cross-border impact may also be manifested by generating units [...] Read more.
Due to the strategic nature of the energy sector, legal solutions to protect cross-border electricity and gas connections will be of particular importance. The author realizes that at the present stage of development, the cross-border impact may also be manifested by generating units (e.g., wind farms) or even end users themselves. The lack of harmonized regulations in this area may not only lead to limitations in the physical supply of electricity and gas, but also affect future investment decisions regarding, for example, new generation capacities. In a broader aspect, it will delay, and in the extreme case prevent, the achievement of the objectives resulting from the EU energy policy, in particular integration within the single energy market. In this article, the author identifies devices and entities responsible for energy infrastructure that should be classified as necessary for the functioning of the single energy market. The research includes the analysis and evaluation of regulations governing cybersecurity in the energy sector, taking into account the interdependencies within, intersectoral and cross-border. In addition, the author refers to the need to introduce individual legal solutions regarding the protection of energy infrastructure. Full article
19 pages, 558 KiB  
Article
What Is the Macroeconomic Impact of Higher Decarbonization Speeds? The Case of Greece
by Diamantis Koutsandreas, Evangelos Spiliotis, Haris Doukas and John Psarras
Energies 2021, 14(8), 2235; https://doi.org/10.3390/en14082235 - 16 Apr 2021
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4478
Abstract
In alignment with the European Union’s legislation, Greece submitted its final 10-year National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) in December 2019, setting more ambitious energy and climate targets than those originally proposed in the draft version of the document. Apart from higher penetration [...] Read more.
In alignment with the European Union’s legislation, Greece submitted its final 10-year National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) in December 2019, setting more ambitious energy and climate targets than those originally proposed in the draft version of the document. Apart from higher penetration of renewable energy sources (RES), the final NECP projects also zero carbon use in power generation till 2030. Although decarbonization has long been regarded beneficial for economies that base their energy production on coal, as it is the case with Greece, the macroeconomic and societal ramifications of faster transitions to carbon-free economies remain highly unexplored. Under this context, in this paper, we soft-link energy models, namely Times-Greece and Primes, with a macroeconomic model, namely Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP), to measure the effects of the final and draft NECPs on the Greek economy and evaluate the impact of higher decarbonization speeds. We find that the faster transition scenario displays both economic and societal merits, increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and household income by about 1% and 7%, respectively. Full article
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