Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
The resilience of an energy system is defined as the capacity of an energy
system to withstand perturbations from e.g. climatic, economic, technological
and social causes and to rebuild and renew itself afterwards. In this respect,
quantification of the resilience capacity can be used as the merit for
withstanding differing events leading to potential catastrophic consequences.
So, the change of resilience of an energy system can be used in the assessment
of the system behavior and the potential for its mall function development. As
the sustainability index definition we have used specific quality indicators
reflecting corresponding criteria, it is possible to use the sustainability index as
the resilience metric parameter. The change of the economic indicator is
intrinsic to the specific characteristic to be measured in the time scale. The
time change of the economic indicators is common to the classical evaluation
of a system. Any crises of the economic system are preceded with
corresponding changes in the economic indicators of the system. Qualitative
measurement of the indicator changes may lead to the forecast of the economic
crises, which is only one element of the potential disastrous changes of the
system affecting its safety [10].
The mutual interaction between the system and its surrounding is
imminent for any system. The changes in the interaction rate will affect the
safety of the system. If these processes are in steady state, it can be considered
that the system is safe. As good example for this type of changes of indicators
is the interaction of system and its surrounding in the case of radioactive leaks
from nuclear facilities, which may lead to hazardous consequences.
The change of social element of complexity of the system is a property of
the complex system. The social aspect of system includes the risk of changes
as health hazards and may have to deal with a compounding of complexity at
different levels. It is of interest to notice that some of the social changes are an
inherent characteristic of the system. As an example we can take any strike,
which is the result of the economic changes of the system. A similar example
can be seen if there is a sudden change in the environment, which will lead to
social disturbances.
3.5.4 . Resilience Index for Energy System
Resilience Index is integral of the Sustainability Index between time of
sudden change in the respective indicator and time when it resume steady state
value. The resilience index for an energy system is composed of the following
