The EU electricity security decision-analytic framework: Status and perspective developments

Abstract

Electricity security, generally referring to a system's capability to provide electricity to its users, is a multi-faceted problem attracting mounting attention from policy makers and scientists around the world. Electricity security encompasses largely different properties based upon the time/geographical scales of the factors affecting electricity delivery; it is challenged by threats surfacing in spheres far beyond the physical one; it involves a myriad of stakeholders spanning manifold disciplines and with considerably different expectations from the electricity commodity or services; it can be studied as a complicated techno-economic problem or as a complex socio-economic problem. All the above reasons, in a framework of changing European Union (EU) and global energy scenarios, render electricity security ever more challenging to assess and critical to safeguard. Against this background, this work presents recommendations to bring science and policy making closer towards evaluating and handling EU electricity security. More in detail, this is done by: · Characterising electricity security via features at the cross-roads of policy and science. · Reviewing the electricity security modelling and assessment approaches across sectors. · Proposing elements for a novel electricity security decision-analytic framework for the EU. · Contextualising the proposed framework in EU's Energy Union grid design initiatives.