Energy system resilience – A review

Abstract

The term resilience describes the ability to survive and quickly recover from extreme and unexpected disruptions. A high energy system resilience is of utmost importance to modern societies that are highly dependent on continued access to energy services. This review covers the terminology of energy system resilience and the assessment of a broad landscape of threats mapped with the proposed framework. A more detailed discussion on two specific threats are given: extreme weather, which is the cause for most of the energy supply disruptions, and cyberattacks, which still are a minor, but rapidly increasing concern. The framework integrates various perspectives on energy system threats by showcasing interactions between the parts of the energy system and its environment. Weather-related threats are discussed distinguishing relevant meteorological parameters and different durations of disruptions, increasingly related to the impacts of the climate change. Extremes in space weather caused by solar activity are very rare, but are nonetheless considered due to their potentially catastrophic impacts on a global scale. Digitalization of energy systems, e.g. through smart grids important to renewable electricity utilization, may as such improve resilience from traditional weather and technical failure threats, but it also introduces new vulnerabilities to cyberattacks. Major differences between the internet and smart grids limit the applicability of existing cybersecurity solutions to the energy sector. Other structural energy system changes will likely bring new threats, which call for updating the threat landscape for expected system development scenarios.