SNSF Ambizione Energy project RIGOROuS

RIsk GOveRnance of electricity pOrtfolioS (RIGOROuS):
Cross-technology and spatial tradeoffs of multiple risks

All electricity generation technologies create risks to society, such as global warming, induced seismicity, or severe industrial accidents. Scientific inquiry and wider energy debate often revolve around individual technologies. Such view gives an illusion that exclusion of one technology eliminates risks. As electricity demand is supplied by a technology portfolio, exclusion of one technology in fact means that this technology will need to be deployed elsewhere or that another technology will need to be used.

The project aims at examining such cross-technology and spatial risk tradeoffs in the Swiss electricity portfolio. Multiple risks associated with the electricity generation technologies will be first modeled and mapped out, taking a broad and open view to risk, including known and uncertain consequences, known and uncertain likelihoods, and varying knowledge confidence. This information will be made accessible to the experts, stakeholders and the wider public by means of two interactive tools RISKMETERS (basic and spatially-explicit versions). RISKMETERS will then be used to measure expert, stakeholder and public preferences for the Swiss electricity portfolios in light of risks.

To the society and economy the project will provide (i) new information about the risk tradeoffs in the Swiss electricity portfolio, (ii) two interactive and publically available tools RISMETERs for accessing this information, and (iii) improved understanding of the expert, stakeholder, and public preferences. These findings can inform the choice and siting of electricity generation technologies in Switzerland and thus contribute to finding socially viable and scientifically sound ways to implement the Energy Strategy 2050.