5th International Disaster and Risk Conference IDRC 2014 Integrative Risk Management - The role of science, technology & practice 24-28 August 2014 in Davos, Switzerland

1. Wir schaffen Wissen – heute für morgen
Paul Scherrer Institut
Peter Burgherr
Towards resilient energy systems:
balancing safety, security and sustainability aspects
IDRC Davos 2014
Davos, Switzerand, 24-28 August 2014
IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014

2. Resilience – “Buzz Word” or “Magic Bullet”?
• Is resilience management an extension of classical risk assessment and
management or just “Old Wine in New Bottles”?
• Why should energy systems become (more) resilient? What are the
advantages?
• Do we need new methodologies to quantitatively measure resilience or are
existing ones sufficient?
• …
Burgherr: Towards Resilient IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014 2 Energy Systems

3. Content
• Energy System Risks in a Broader Context
• Risk – Key Terms and Definitions
• Resilience – Origin, Definition
• Resilience – Applications and Developments
• Resilience as an Umbrella Concept
Burgherr: Towards Resilient IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014 3 Energy Systems

4. Energy System Risks in a Broader Context
Energy Security
- Availability
- Acceptability
- Accessibility
- Affordability
Energy System
Sustainability
- Environment
- Economy
- Society
Random accidents
- Technical failures
- Natural hazards
Extreme Events
- Black Swans (lack of knowledge)
- Perfect Storms (randomness)
Governance
- Decision Making
(tradeoffs, compromises, robust
solutions, priority setting)
- Perception (subjective aspects)
- Communication
Critical Infrastructure Protection
- Interdependencies
- Subject to multiple threats
- …
Intentional attacks
- Vandalism
- Sabotage
- Theft
- Piracy
- Terrorism
External Factors
- Urbanization - new business models
- Industrialization - distributed systems
- Occupy more risk-prone areas - coupled infrastructures
- More complex and - …
advanced systems
Burgherr: Towards Resilient IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014 4 Energy Systems

5. Risk – Key Terms and Definitions
• Safety vs. Security: protecting against random vs. intended incidents
• Risk: potential for realization of unwanted, adverse consequences to human life, health, property,
or the environment (Society for Risk Analysis)
Risk = Probability x Consequences
Consequence
Frequency
Security Risk = Threat x Vulnerability x Consequences
• Threat: likelihood that a specific accident or attack will occur
• Vulnerability: likelihood that various types of safeguards fail
• Consequences: magnitude of negative effects
• Uncertainty: randomness (aleatory), lack of knowledge (epistemic)
deep uncertainty (multiplicity of plausible futures or unknown future)
Burgherr: Towards Resilient IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014 5 Energy Systems

6. Resilience – Origin, Definition
• In ecology, the concept of resilience has been introduced
in 1973 by Holling.
• Resilience is the “the magnitude of disturbance that can
be absorbed before the system changes its structure …”
• The adaptive cycle schematically represents the four
distinct ecosystem phases:
- Growth or exploitation (r)
- Conservation (K)
- Collapse or release (Ω)
- Reorganization (α)
Source: Holling and Gunderson (2002)
Resilience (National Academy of Sciences)
• Ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from,
and more successfully adapt to adverse events.
• Risk analysis quantifies probability that the system
will reach the lowest point of the critical functionality.
• Risk management helps the system prepare and plan
for adverse events.
• Resilience management integrates the temporal
capacity of a system to
absorb and recover from
adverse events, and
then adapt .
Linkov et al. (2014),
Nature Climate Change
Burgherr: Towards Resilient IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014 6 Energy Systems

7. Resilience – Applications and Developments
• Roege et al. (2014): Metrics for energy resilience
• Matthews et al. (2014): A critical analysis of hazard resilience measures within sustainability
assessment frameworks
• Francis & Bekera (2014): A metric and frameworks for resilience analysis of engineered and
infrastructure systems
• Filippini & Silva (2014): A modeling framework for the resilience analysis of networked systems-of-
systems based on functional dependencies
• Linkov et al. (2013): Measurable Resilience for Actionable Policy
• Molyneaux et al. (2012): Resilience and electricity systems: A comparative analysis
• Ouyang et al. (2012): A three-stage resilience analysis framework for urban infrastructure
systems
• Cox et al. (2011): Transportation security and the role of resilience: A foundation for operational
metrics
• Madni & Jackson (2009): Towards a Conceptual Framework for Resilience Engineering
Focus on frameworks and metrics  need for new methodologies
Burgherr: Towards Resilient IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014 7 Energy Systems

8. YES, but
Resilience as an Umbrella Concept
• Consider risk and resilience management as complementary and synergistic,
not competing approaches
• Operationalize resilience approach, i.e. frameworks must be applicable
• Context-specific applications
• Develop quantitative metrics
• …
 More resilient energy system
 Safe, Secure, Sustainable (S3)
Burgherr: Towards Resilient IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014 8 Energy Systems

9. Thank you for your attention!
Accidents happen. In fact, accidents
are what life is about.“
Tom Peters – „The Pursuit of Wow“
“Just as a disaster is not simply a big accident, so a
catastrophe is not just a bigger disaster.”
E.L. Quarantelli, 1996
Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI)
Laboratory for Energy Systems Analysis (LEA)
Technology Assessment Group (TAG)
http://www.psi.ch/ta
peter.burgherr@psi.ch
"The nature doesn‘t know catastrophes,
only men know catastrophes
as far as having survived them."
Max Frisch (writer and philosopher)
One should expect that the expected can be prevented,
but the unexpected should have been expected
Augustine, 1996
IDRC Davos, 24-28 August 2014 Burgherr: Towards Resilient Energy Systems