Energy system resilience: Formulating a guiding concept for energy policymaking

This paper aims to define energy system resilience (ESR) in a way that can guide energy policymakers in designing, maintaining, and improving energy systems. The concept of resilience has become increasingly popular in the last two decades. Particularly in energy system design, the term ESR – sometimes synonymously called energy resilience – often appears in academic works and public policy domains alongside themes such as energy sustainability, energy transition, etc. However, the literature rarely provides a normative goal for ESR, such that it is not sufficiently action-guiding for energy policymaking. In this work, we define ESR in a way that incorporates technical characteristics, socio-technical means, and an ethical goal. Beginning with the general conception of resilience as ‘bouncing back’, and tracing how resilience is used in energy systems, we then illustrate how ESR is used across the literature, analyse a selection of studies which provide explicit ESR definitions, and formulate a new comprehensive definition. Containing technical characteristics, socio-technical means, and an ethical goal, we define ESR as the readiness of an energy system to bounce forward amidst anticipated and unanticipated disruptions in order to provide a sufficient and stable energy supply through reliable engineering techniques, efficient management, and conducive social institutions. We then operationalise this comprehensive definition in energy policymaking. Finally, we provide a summary of this paper and indicate what might limit the impact of its findings, namely, that ESR is but one aspect to address in energy system design.