Abstract:
Energy security is critical for the sustenance of the different world economies. In the light of the rising global energy demands, there is need to explore different means of realising this goal. The traditional energy system infrastructure is partitioned into layers which work interdependently with each other in order to supply energy to consumers. Nanotechnology is a growing area of research which is enabling the production of more efficient products which are being employed at these different layers of the energy system architecture for more efficient and optimal energy systems. A more reliable energy system infrastructure will contribute to a more energy secure society. In this paper we show that since the traditional energy system architecture is layered and interdependent, the net-reliability of the system is a function of the product of the reliabilities of the individual components. Thus, the application of nanotechnology to these sub-layers in improving the system’s reliability would result in an overall improvement in energy security