Assessing and Measuring Energy Systems Resilience
Energy systems are the key backbone of developed societies. Their failure can have dramatic consequences, as seen in the blackouts in north-eastern United States in 2012 caused by Hurricane Sandy. We need to better understand how technical, human-induced, and natural disruptions affect different types of energy systems in order to improve current systems and develop more robust long-term energy strategies.
The research module will:
- compare accident risks across a broad range of current and future energy supply chains based on available historical experience and probabilistic approaches, through hybrid approaches complemented by expert judgment
- establish a comprehensive set of resilience indicators with emphasis on supply security
- develop tools to support decision making and to improve conflicting energy planning processes
The Energy System Accident Risks and Indicators submodule will investigate a wide spectrum of energy technologies—including centralised, decentralised, fossil, renewable and nuclear—that may be affected by technical failures, human failures, intentional attacks, and natural hazards. This research will contribute to the energy-related severe accident database (ENSAD)—the most comprehensive database on accidents in the energy sector developed by Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI)—in both content and scope of analytical methods for comparative evaluation.
The focus will be on Singapore and the neighbouring countries, although comparisons with other regions are also essential to put results in perspective. Simplified level-3 probabilistic safety assessment (PSA) will be used to analyse nuclear power plants, so as to generate site-specific realistic estimates of consequences. Accident data will be geo-referenced to enable the use of advanced geo-statistical methods to detect spatio-temporal patterns in the data. The study will account for the impact of prospective technological advancements with a time horizon until the year 2050.
The Security of Supply and Resilience submodule will focus on the entire energy supply chain, from the procurement of energy carriers to energy conversion operations, energy distribution, and waste disposal. A comprehensive set of indicators will be established using multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), to be combined with stakeholder preferences to produce aggregated performance measures and to explore sensitivities. Further, to facilitate application of MCDA by stakeholders, an interactive tool for assessing energy supply portfolios and networks will be developed. Finally, the study will explore methodologies, such as robust optimisation, system dynamics, and resilience network modelling, to support problems under uncertainty.