A multi-hazard assessment of Europe’s power plants

Power plants are essential for modern life and blackouts are a frequent observation during natural disasters. Thus, assessing the specific hazards for power plant facilities is a crucial component of community risk management. However, multi-hazard assessments are rare and risk studies only rely on independent perils.

For the European power plant sites, a multi-hazard assessment has been taken out considering earthquakes, flood, tornados and lightning. Each peril is considered independently. For each power plant location, return period curves for the relevant impact metrics like ground motion or wind speed have been compiled based on a variety of hazard model inputs. Those curves have been combined to provide threshold exceedance curves for any multi-hazard combination.

The results have been facilitated within a software developed for the H2020 EURATOM NARSIS project (New Approach to Reactor Safety ImprovementS) to allow users to define relevant thresholds for different power plant system components like offsite power generators or the connecting road network. In addition, it allows to explore the site-specific hazard combinations. The tool is based on the Electron development framework.

This study provides a general overview on the multi-hazard situation of Europe’s primary power producers and highlights sites where multi-hazard combinations may lead to infrastructure disruption. The results come with an easy-to-use tool to quickly assess the relevant metrics. It is hoped that these findings can help to increase the overall resilience of the European power network.

How to cite: Schaefer, A., Daniell, J., and Wenzel, F.: A multi-hazard assessment of Europe’s power plants, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-13108, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-13108, 2020