Robust Development of the Energy System for Energy Security: Open Source Methodologies for the Robust Development of the Energy System for Energy Sovereignty and Resilience

The importance of energy sovereignty and the resilience of the energy system has recently come to the fore in the energy policy debate. Russia’s ongoing war of aggression against Ukraine is leading to tectonic shifts and upheavals on a geopolitical level and thus also on an energy policy level.

The experience gathered with the absence of Russian gas supplies for Europe has shown that in the further planning and development of the energy system, aspects with a very unlikely probability of occurrence must be emphasised explicitly and more strongly. This experience should be taken into account with a view to other challenges with similar risk profiles.

There is a need for conceptualisation in order to identify and implement sufficiently specified strategies to safeguard security of supply: a more specific treatment of issues relating to energy sovereignty and the resilience of the energy system is required. Conceptualisation is also needed in energy system analysis – a key instrument in the strategy and political planning and (uncertainty) assessment of transformation processes such as the energy transition. There is a need to analyse aspects such as dependencies (raw materials, strategic goods, etc.), diversification (sources of supply, technologies, infrastructures, etc.), self-sufficiency (in a national or European context), vulnerabilities and reconstruction capabilities (e.g. after extreme events) with suitable instruments and, if necessary, thinking beyond monetarisation.

One way of taking these aspects into account in an energy system model is to consider uncertainties in a stochastic model. The aim of this project is to further develop and apply suitable planning tools for a robust and simultaneously sustainable energy supply strategy that is understood in a very broad context, considering existing short and long-term uncertainties that have an impact with various time constants, particularly on infrastructure solutions to be planned in the long term as well as technology and supply structures.