Evaluating energy security of resource-poor economies: A modified principle component analysis approach

This study proposes to aggregately measure energy security performance with the principal component analysis. In its application of the methodology to four resource-poor yet economically advanced island economies in East Asia Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, this study establishes a novel framework to conceptualize energy security. The framework incorporates three dimensions: vulnerability, efficiency, and sustainability, three indicators being allocated to each dimension. The study finds that all the three dimensions are critical for the resource-poor economies but have different weights in each of them. An urgent task for these four economies is to implement energy efficiency and conservation measures. Liberalization of electricity sector can be a helpful tool to reduce energy consumption and increase efficiency. All of them have been committed to promoting renewable energy development, which-shall be further expanded in these economies. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.