The paper is devoted to the standing Scientific Workshop “Methodological problems in research on reliability of large energy systems”, which was organized in 1973 in Irkutsk at the Siberian Energy Institute of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences as a nation-wide workshop. Nowadays it is the International Scientific Workshop named after Academician Yu. N. Rudenko, which is well known in the community of scientists and experts in the energy sector of Russia, the former Soviet republics and other countries. Energy systems (ES) — those based on electricity, gas, oil and oil products, heat, etc., though diverse in terms of their physical nature, structural properties and specifics of functioning, have a certain commonality in the processes of production, transportation, distribution and storage of energy resources. Moreover, the interconnections and interdependence of energy systems within the fuel and energy sector, especially in emergency conditions, make it possible, at a necessary level of abstraction, to use identical techniques and methods of research, and ensure their reliability. All this allowed Yu. N. Rudenko, the organizer of the scientific workshop, to assign the workshop with its cross-sectoral status. In 2018, the workshop celebrated its 45-year anniversary; the workshop had come to the date as a recognized and highly respected international intellectual platform for discussing and solving urgent issues of reliability of energy systems, crosssectoral problems of studying and ensuring reliability and energy security. The paper presents a wide range of problems of ES reliability considered at the workshop sessions, as well as the results of solving the same. Special attention is paid to works initiated by the workshop and fulfilled using the results of studies of the workshop on unification of terminology in reliability of ES and energy security, the development of a concept of reliability in power industry and interstate technology reliability standards harmonized with international standards. The workshop continues to function successfully owing to its activities related to the integration and development of knowledge in the field of reliability of energy systems and energy security.
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