Sectoral Brief: Addressing multi-hazard risk in the energy sector - learnings from the MYRIAD-EU project. MYRIAD-EU Sectoral Brief

The European energy sector is undergoing a profound transformation driven by decarbonisation, digitalisation, and decentralisation. However, this transition is increasingly challenged by the growing complexity and interconnectivity of risks. Climate change, geopolitical tensions, aging infrastructure, and cyber threats are converging to create multi-hazard and multirisk scenarios that threaten the reliability, resilience, and sustainability of energy systems across Europe.

The EEA assessment ‘Adaptation challenges and opportunities for the European energy system’ (EEA, 2019) warns that climate change and extreme weather events increasingly affect all parts of the European energy system. The most important changes include increases in mean and extreme air and water temperatures, and changes in water availability, extreme climate‑related events, and coastal and marine hazards. These changes will affect the availability of primary energy sources as well as the transformation, transmission, distribution and storage of energy, and energy demand.

This document transfers the MYRIAD-EU approach to the energy sector, including harmonised definitions of multi-hazard/multirisk, sets of historical events (MYRIAD-HES), and a multi-sectoral perspective (energywater- ecosystems- transport-financeagriculture- food). This approach is applied in five Pilots (Danube, Scandinavia, North Sea, Veneto, Canary Islands) to co-develop Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) pathways.

Recommendations:

• Adopt and implement integrated risk frameworks that account for compound, cascading, and interconnected hazards, like ISO 31000, and leverage tools from MYRIADEU to assess cross-sectoral vulnerabilities.

• Upgrade aging energy infrastructure to withstand extreme weather events, including floods, heatwaves, and wildfires. Include multi-hazard and multi-risk assessments in these plans to ensure resilient and futureproof designs.

• Extend cross-border interconnection, which is a key strategy to strengthen energy systems against various climaterelated hazards, and thereby reduces supply disruptions and imbalances (that lead to high price volatility and inefficiencies). It enhances regional cooperation, resource sharing, and grid stability, making energy infrastructure more resilient and adaptive.

• Strengthen regional and cross-border cooperation through EU mechanisms like the Risk Preparedness Regulation and Union Civil Protection Mechanism and develop joint contingency plans and shared data platforms for real-time risk monitoring and response.

• Improve data collection and analytics on energy infrastructure and hazard exposure to support advanced risk modelling by promoting open data sharing and collaboration between energy providers, researchers, and public agencies.

• Training energy sector professionals in multi-risk thinking, including compound and systemic risk scenarios.