Building critical energy infrastructure resilience for a more secure and sustainable energy future
Today’s global energy crisis is a stark reminder of how accustomed we have become to the availability of affordable and reliable energy around the clock. As energy sustains the functioning of most critical services in our societies, supply disruptions, blackouts, and damage to critical energy infrastructure – whether man-made or as a result of natural disasters – constitute major security threats with far-reaching consequences on our health, public safety, economies, and the environment.
The impact of the war against Ukraine on the energy sector, and on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in particular, together with the explosions along the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, have brought the issue of critical energy infrastructure protection to the forefront of the political agenda. This has sparked urgent debates around the vulnerability of our energy systems and the need to increase our capacity to mitigate and respond to such threats.
Sabotage and explosions are only one kind of man-made threat to critical energy infrastructure. Cyberattacks are also growing at an unprecedented rate. Malicious actors caused half of the cybersecurity incidents recorded in the energy industry in 2019, while in the first half of 2022, the energy and oil industry recorded seven major cyberattacks globally. For instance, in February, a series of cyberattacks affected the operations of 17 oil terminals in Europe, 11 in Germany and 6 on Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA)’s oil refining hubs, disrupting loading and unloading operations and affecting oil supply transportation and delivery in Europe.
As electricity systems continue to digitise to increase energy efficiency and accelerate the transition to greener sources, we are expecting such attacks to become even more sophisticated and concerning, with more extreme consequences for our lives.
On top of that, we should not forget that human error remains one of the leading causes of electrical outages and incidents on the power grids: 32% of major blackouts occurring from 2011 to 2019 were rooted in human error.
Next to man-made threats, is the increasing frequency of natural disasters fuelled by climate change. Extreme weather conditions – including hurricanes, floods, droughts, and extreme temperatures, are leading to structural damage and blackouts, which are becoming a growing reality for most countries in the OSCE region and beyond.
The recent power outages caused by Hurricane Ian in Florida or last year’s winter storms in Texas left millions of people without electricity, resulting in some of the costliest disasters in US history. Meanwhile in Europe, a summer marked by droughts, extreme temperatures, and wildfires put the power grid under heavy strain, causing shortages in Norway and forcing output cuts at several nuclear power plants in France.
These dramatic events show that climate change is already affecting the safety and resilience of our energy systems and the risks go well beyond the energy sector.
As energy networks have dependencies and interdependencies with all other critical infrastructures, such breakdowns can have devastating cascading effects on our economy, safety, and public health. The 2021 cyberattack against the Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the United States, is a case in point. It resulted in a ransom payment equivalent to $4.4 million, caused by oil supply and aviation disruptions, price hikes, and panic-buying in many US states.
Increasing international co-operation, knowledge, and information sharing on critical energy infrastructure expertise is crucial for global safety and security.
Unfortunately, these threats will only increase in prominence and frequency in the coming years. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that we are prepared to secure our critical energy infrastructure and to reduce their vulnerabilities in the first place.
For almost a decade, the OSCE has been supporting energy practitioners and decision-makers to safeguard their energy networks, mitigate natural hazards and man-made threats, and prepare the grid to enable the energy transition.
We have conducted several energy security assessments – such as the recent OSCE Study on Advancing Energy Security in Central Asia, and provided practical guidelines – like the OSCE Handbook on Protecting Electricity Networks from Natural Hazards. Additionally, we have been organizing workshops and study visits to raise awareness and build knowledge on existing risk prevention and mitigation policies and tools.
We have developed a wide range of training, capacity building and information-sharing tools, including an online training course on the protection of critical energy infrastructure, making them accessible to participating States. Through our online course, developed in partnership with experts from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, we are providing decision makers in this field with advanced knowledge of key energy security topics, including risk analysis and risk management, infrastructure dependencies, cybersecurity, resilience, emerging threats, and climate change. The course is accessible to anyone on the OSCE E-learning Platform and available in both English and Russian.
To respond to increasing energy security risks posed by climate change, we are launching a new project focused on mitigating climate change threats to critical energy infrastructure. This will provide energy decision makers and practitioners with reliable climate data and the capacity to integrate it into their energy policies, with the aim to strengthen the climate resilience of their energy systems while making the integration of renewable energy a reality.
While building energy infrastructure resilience represents one of the biggest challenges of our times, by building a culture of preparedness and international co-operation, we can effectively support OSCE decision makers to safeguard their energy infrastructure and provide sustainable and reliable energy to everyone.