Review of disaster resilience

assessment methods:
Quantitative aspects for renewable
energy systems modelling

Maksims Feofilovs, Armands Gravelsins,

Francesco Romagnoli
Institute of Energy Systems and Environment
Riga Technical University
Riga, Latvia

RTUcon 2020
6th of November, 2020
Topicality

Energy sectors CO2 Increase in climate related Implementation of renewable

emissions contributing to hazards trigger energy energy sources for CO2 emission
climate change system disruptions reduction and diversification of
energy supplies

How to predict possible effects of the different strategies

for energy system resilience?
How to measure energy system resilience against
disasters caused by climate change?
How to consider energy system resilience as a dynamic
process in temporal and spatial scale?
Aim
• The aim of this study is to acknowledge the existing shortages in
energy system resilience against climate change based disasters
through a literature review on existing tools for measuring
resilience with a particular emphasis on the energy system.

• Research questions:
1) What is the quantitative definition of resilience measurement?
2) What methods are used for resilience assessment?
3) What are the shortages of existing methods?
Methodology
• This research is performed in Scopus database.
• The following key words are selected:
“Energy resilience”, “Resilience modeling”, “Resilience Assessment”,
“Resilience to disasters”, “Resilience indicators” “Infrastructure resilience”,
“Resilience simulations”, “Probabilistic resilience simulation”.
Definition of resilience measurement
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from a certain impact after disruptive event

Adaptive
• The inherent resilience measures Shock resilience
capacities of system to deal with
disruptive event, is presented as a Inherent
comparative and holistic measure resilience

Functionality level
Preparedness Mitigation

Response
• Adaptive resilience relates to the er
y
post-event processes (response and o v
ec
recovery) and shows dynamic R
change in systems functionality level

Time
Classification of methods for
measuring resilience
Resilience
assessment

Qualitative Quantitative

Probabilistic
Public Experts Indicator computer based
survey opinion simulation
Indicator based methods

Composite indicator methods based on multi-criteria analysis are often used

to measure inherent resilience

Advantages Disadvantages
Supports the multi-dimensionality Weighting of indicators is subjective
Allow to measure complex phenomena with Static assessment of the inherent resilience
a single score
Easy to use Lack of relationship, interdependencies and
feedbacks among indicators
Results are comparable
Probabilistic methods

Probabilistic methods are based on models created with quantitative methods

and are used to measure adaptive resilience in form of «resilience triangle»

Advantages Disadvantages
Interrelationship of system variables Dynamics of consumer perspective are neglected
Time reference Long-term adaptation strategies are neglected

Spatial reference Failures among different sectors are neglected

Consistent in short term Focus on single disaster

Scenario analysis
Allows to avoid subjective opinion
 Dynamic methods
• System Dynamics is used for complex system modeling
• Allows to combine social and technical aspects
• Examples of system dynamics applications:
1) description the resilience of communities before, during, and after a
disaster (J. M. Links et al., 2018)
2) urban resilience considering the internal and external shocks as financial
challenges, social quality, floods, disasters, global warming (G. Li et al.
2020)
• Can be combined MCA to measure complex phenomena with a single score

J. M. Links et al., “COPEWELL: A Conceptual Framework and System Dynamics Model for Predicting Community Functioning and Resilience after Disasters,” Disaster Med.
Public Health Prep., vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 127–137, Feb. 2018, doi: 10.1017/dmp.2017.39.
G. Li, C. Kou, Y. Wang, and H. Yang, “System dynamics modelling for improving urban resilience in Beijing, China,” Resour. Conserv. Recycl., vol. 161, no. October 2019, p.
104954, 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.104954.
Conclusions
• Quantitative resilience assessment has two distinct types of measurement: inherent
resilience and adaptive resilience.
• Inherent resilience can be measured with composite indicator based methods, while
adaptive resilience is measured with a probabilistic methods applied in computer
simulation tools.
• Indicator based methods are comparable, multidimensional and easy to use, but are
highly generalized, static (lacking the dynamic interaction) and are subjective in
weighting.
• Probabilistic methods applied in simulation tools can be used to perform different
scenario analysis, are precise in short term, but highly dependent on data availability,
often address only one sub-system and lack social aspects.
• Energy systems resilience assessment models should aim on including the dynamic
interaction between social and technological aspects of energy systems and provide an
output that can be used for comparison of different systems.
Acknowledgements

This research is funded by the Latvian Council of Science,

project “Blind spots in the energy transition policy
(BlindSpots)”, project No. lzp-2018/2-0022.