Resilience in the light of energy crises - Part I: A framework to conceptualise regional energy resilience

Resilience in the light of an energy crisis is the capacity to successfully deal with energy related disruptions while continuing to deliver affordable energy services to society. A resilient energy system can rapidly recover from a shock as it is able to reinvent itself. But what happens if an energy crisis hits us? Which functions and structures will be affected? Shall we protect something in particular? Do we need to consider further aspects concerning the energy system? And how can we address and operationalise these complex considerations? These are the questions to be answered within this paper. By identifying types of energy crises, protective commodities, and framework conditions, a proposal is introduced to systematically deal with this topic. A new approach for assessing the community resilience in case of a fossil energy crisis is originated and presented: the regional energy resilience assessment (RERA).