Robustness as a goal in energy models and policies

Terms such as flexibility, resiliency, robustness and freedom of action are appearing increasingly in national energy policy documents with little reference to their meaning in the context of the policy or their measurement relative to policy development. One of these elements, robustness, presents an interesting alternative to cost minimization for decisions involving energy projects and policies. The use of robustness as a policy objective is examined with reference to future electrical generation in the province of Ontario, and the difficulties in planned outcomes between the goals of cost minimization and robustness are discussed. The assumption is made of a linkage between energy models and policies to facilitate the use of robustness analysis. Examples of the form of this linkage are presented in the Canadian context.