Assessing the vulnerability of energy supply chains: Influencing factors and countermeasures

The energy supply chain plays an important role in maintaining regional energy security. In the current context, the contradiction between sustainable development goals and unstable energy supply has increased people's concerns about energy shortages. The aim of this paper is to develop a framework for assessing the regional vulnerability of energy supply chains (VESC). This paper identifies five critical factors affecting VESC: energy policy choices, climate and environmental changes, energy supply and demand relationships, power supply sources, and energy technology choices. Then, this research proposes a novel theoretical model (PC-3E) to capture the interrelationships among these factors and to evaluate regional VESC. Employing China's energy crisis in the winter of 2021 as a case study, this paper analyzes how the critical factors influence the VESC and explores the working mechanism of the policy-based interventions to restore the stability of energy supply chains. This study clarifies the definition and evaluation mechanism of VESC, which can provide energy policymakers with reference for maintaining a healthy energy supply chain.