Download There is an urgent need to develop quantitative assessment

Short and long-term indicators and early warning tool for energy security
[Lenhard Vanhoorn, JRC-IE Petten, The Netherlands, +31 224 56 53 80; [email protected]]
[Anca Badea, JRC-IE Petten, The Netherlands, +31 224 56 51 31; [email protected]]
[Fabio Monforti, JRC-IE Petten, The Netherlands, +31 224 56 51 41; [email protected]]
[Andras Szikszai, JRC-IE Petten, The Netherlands, +31 224 56 52 13, [email protected]]
[Ana Vetere-Arellano, JRC-IE Petten, The Netherlands, +31 224 56 51 69; [email protected]]
[Henryk Faas, JRC-IE Petten, The Netherlands, +31 224 56 50 94; [email protected]]
Overview
On January 7, EU imports of Russian gas supplies through the Ukraine, some 264 million cubic metres per day (mcm/day),
were shut down. This had dramatic effects in particular for those EU member states, such as Bulgaria and the Slovak Republic,
countries that depend exclusively on this supply route, leaving homes without gas for heating, and forcing production stops in
some industries. Gas supplies restarted only on 20 January 2009 and were fully restored on 21 January 2009. This disruption
was the most serious of its kind, while for an unprecedented period of several weeks, Europe was cut from 30% of its total gas
imports, an equivalent of 20% of its gas supplies.
However, the crisis came not entirely by surprise, and the cut of a major supply route is now a realistic scenario that could
reoccur. In order to be better prepared and to be able to react more adequately to future disruptions, policy makers need
adequate metrics, for identification of critical situations (e.g. gas shortages) as well as the detection of infrastructure
bottlenecks, the evaluation of interconnection projects, investment needs etc.
In this study we aim to develop security of supply indicators and early warning tools. We then apply these a) to quantitatively
assess the recent Russia-Ukraine gas supply dispute and b) to evaluate the impact of energy security related projects such as
critical gas interconnectors as foreseen in the European Energy Recovery Plan.
Methods
The approach consists of three coupled components: (a) energy security indicators, (b) a flow model of European gas supplies
and (c) a visual output using a geographical information system.
(a) Firstly, we focus on 9 indicator groups building on 7 input parameter groups, as illustrated in Table 1. The input parameters
are chosen from energy balances (supply, demand, transformation), economical (prices, investment levels, etc.) and
geopolitical categories (country risks) to form 9 indicator groups (macro-economic, energy balance, reserve-to-production,
sectoral, diversification, import risk, infrastructure, gas crisis, gas flow model).
(b) Secondly, a gas flow model (MC-GENERCIS) estimates the main cross-border pipeline flows, storage and LNG supplies
for EU countries and their main suppliers, taking into consideration also decisions made by operators and countries. A Monte
Carlo approach is thus used to generate different supply scenarios. The model can be used for short and long term scenarios in
both normal and crisis situations. An uncertainty analysis is performed.
(c) Thirdly, results are visualized using geographical information system (GIS) with different colors related to alert levels.
Results
We describe examples of our preliminary results. Fig. 1a. shows a modified Herfindahl-Hirschman indicator of market
concentration. For each supplier country, the weight is a geopolitical country risk. More concentrated gas import markets are
characterized by a lower value of the index (shown in dark red). Eastern European member states tend to have more
concentrated markets. The pie charts represent the gas supplier shares for every MS demonstrating for example the exclusive
dependence of Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia, Bulgaria from Russia. The southern and western EU member states have
more diversified imports from respectively Africa, Middle East and Norway.
Fig. 1b illustrates the gas storage indicator. We compare both the nominal storage capacities of the EU MS and their storage
capacity per unit of gas consumption. France, Germany and Italy have the largest underground storage capacity. However,
taking into account the annual consumption of these countries, the capacities are lower compared with other (transit) countries
such as Slovak Republic, Bulgaria and Hungary. Moreover, countries as for example Greece, Finland, Lithuania and Estonia
have low gas storage capacity.
2
Fig. 1a Market concentration indicator for gas import
Fig. 1b Gas storage capacity indicators
In the category of crisis indicators, we assess the effectiveness of different measures that countries could take in the recent gas
crisis. One of these measures is for example maximising withdrawal capacity out of storage. Preliminary results show that in
Hungary, withdrawal capacity could be increased from 25 mcm/day to 52 mcm/day. This additional (flexible) supply to the
market is equivalent to 24% of the total maximum gas supply capacity of the country. This measure could offset 77% of the
daily disruption (35 mcm/day). In the beginning of the crisis, storage capacity was filled to a level of about 60% (2280
mcm/day), equivalent to 34 days of consumption at the time. In case of 100% filled storage, this would have been equal to 56
days.
Conclusions
There is an urgent need to develop quantitative assessment and alert tools in order to prevent or detect possible energy crises.
This approach will allow a quantitative assessment of energy policy decisions, including a wide range of factors impacting
energy security and will provide support to decision makers in order to alleviate future energy crises.
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