Comprehensive resilience assessment of electricity supply security for 140 countries

Abstract

Indicator-based approaches are suitable to assess multi-dimensional problems. In order to compare a set of alternatives, one strategy is to normalize individual indicators to a common scale and aggregate them into a comprehensive score. This study proposes the Electricity Supply Resilience Index (ESRI), which is a measure of a nation’s electricity supply resilience. Starting from an initial set of individual indicators derived through a structured selection process, the ESRI is calculated for 140 countries worldwide. To account for robustness of the resulting resilience index, 38 combinations of eight normalization methods and six aggregation functions were considered. Results show a clear country ranking trend, with robust top- and low-performing countries across all combinations. However, the ranking disparity becomes large for average performing countries, especially if their indicators show high variability. Furthermore, the differences of the rankings are quantified through the Rank Difference Measure (RDM), which identifies the categorical scales and the minimum aggregator as the most different ones. Finally, the effects of different compensation levels of the aggregation functions are discussed. The findings of the present study aim to provide recommendations for policymakers on how composite indexes results depend on assumptions and chosen approaches.