World Energy Trilemma Index 2020. Report + Summary

The World Energy Council's definition of energy sustainability is based on three core dimensions: Energy Security, Energy Equity, and Environmental Sustainability of Energy Systems. Balancing these three goals constitutes a 'Trilemma' and balanced systems enable prosperity and competitiveness of individual countries. The World Energy Trilemma Index presents a comparative ranking of 128 countries' energy systems. It provides an assessment of a country's energy system performance, reflecting balance and robustness in the three Trilemma dimensions. This year we celebrate the 10. anniversary of the World Energy Trilemma Index following its initial launch in 2010 as an energy policy pathfinding tool. Countries develop different energy policies based upon their domestic circumstances with varying natural resources, geographies, and socioeconomic systems. This divergence of differing systems and contexts mean that there is no single golden path for successful energy transition, and instead, each country will need to determine its own best energy policy pathway considering its national situation and priorities. This means that direct comparisons between the rankings and scores of countries can be less informative, but instead help provide a conversation opening. But countries can and should learn from each other, by learning what policies work and why such policies might be successful within some contexts but not in others. The Energy Trilemma Index can help countries and energy stakeholders in an on-going dialogue to determine what areas of energy policies need to improve and examples from other countries that may help to determine which options might be more suitable. While 2020 has been overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Energy Trilemma reflects historical energy policy performance that does not include this year's data. The impact of the pandemic will become evident in the 2021 Trilemma as annual data for 2020 becomes available. Some implications of the pandemic for energy are already visible - with the increased focus on digitalisation and depressed global demand, although the longer-term implications for energy systems and transition remain unclear. In this year's Trilemma, the overall scores top ten ranks remain dominated by OECD countries, which illustrates the benefit of longstanding active energy policies. The top three ranking countries of Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark have overall scores of 84 and above. The top ten ranks have a strong European flavour with Canada, the United States and New Zealand breaking the OECD European monopoly. This year we have introduced tied ranks due to the closeness of some country scores; for example, Austria and Finland have the same score and are ranked 4. while the UK and France also share the same score to be ranked 5. The closeness of the scores also prompted the use of the broader ranking definition so that the top ten ranks include more than ten countries due to tied ranks with equal scores. The path followed by the greatest improvers since 2000 reveals the importance of diversifying energy systems and increasing access. The top three countries improving their overall Trilemma performance are Cambodia, Myanmar and Kenya. These countries have low overall ranks but have made significant and sustained efforts to improve their energy systems. In the Energy Security dimension, the top ten ranks include countries with significant hydrocarbon resources alongside countries focused on diversifying and decarbonizing their energy systems with Canada, Finland and Romania topping the list of best performers. The Energy Equity top ten ranks benefit from producer countries with low energy costs for consumers - implicit subsidies - that may be more challenging moving forward in a more volatile price environment post-COVID-19. Luxembourg, Qatar and Kuwait head the list of the top ten performers for the dimension. In the Environmental Sustainability dimension, the top ten rank showcases strong policy efforts to decarbonize and diversify energy systems with the top three being Switzerland, Sweden and Norway. Energy transition brings globally unprecedented change to the energy sector as countries seek to decarbonize while energy policies and regulations themselves tend to lag with incremental step changes. This means that the Energy Trilemma Index needs to evolve continually in order to remain relevant by including the indicators that best reflect the evolving energy sector by modifying data sources or indicator coverage. Changes to the 2020 Trilemma have been incremental and focused on refining the model, although we are evolving the visual presentation. The dimension chapters include summary graphics and text with colour coding to highlight key insights. We have also evolving the graphical presentation of the Trilemma triangle to move away from the orange block towards a colourful composition that better reflects the uniqueness of each Trilemma triangle. The three Trilemma dimension have their own colour aligned with their chapter colouring so the mix for each triangle reflects the differing balances between the dimensions. This multi-colour approach also reflects that energy transition is not single coloured and will reflect a spectrum of differing pathways dependent upon varying national circumstances