Integrated Simulation Model for Energy Security Evaluation

Abstract: Energy security is a difficult issue to evaluate due to its polysemic and multifaceted nature. Recent studies have evaluated energy security by considering a multitude of dimensions (i.e., availability, affordability, etc.). However, these works lack coherence, as performance in one dimension is not necessarily relevant to performance in others. Due to this consideration, an ex-ante evaluation (i.e., policy analysis) of energy security cannot be reliably performed. This paper proposes an integrated simulation approach to address this apparent shortcoming. We consider energy security performance as a feature that emerges from interactions between the components of energy security dimensions. Integration is completed by identifying and establishing relationships between these components. A model is developed for the simulation that uses system dynamics as a modeling tool. The evaluation of Indonesia’s energy security is presented as an example. It is found that the policies intended to improve Indonesia’s energy security may conflict with each other. Increasing energy production will maintain the performance of the availability dimension at a high level in the short term, but this benefit is outweighed by the resulting degradation to the performance of the acceptability dimension. Subsidy elimination will increase the availability of energy due to lower energy consumption at the expense of maintaining energy affordability for the public. This study shows that the interrelationships between the dimensions of energy security is an important aspect to consider in energy security evaluations, as they can reveal tradeoffs between policies and improve the reliability of analyses.