In the energy field, “resilience” refers to the positive side of the energy system when dealing with disturbances and shocks (Gatto and Drago, 2020; Reyers et al., 2022). As pointed out by UNISDR, resilience reflects the valuable quality shared by human society and nature (Molyneaux et al., 2016). A large number of countries have formed a basic energy supply system. How to build a safe, green, and efficient energy system based on distributed energy, smart energy, etc., has become a significant task for the global energy transition. How to accurately assess its resilience is of great significance to the planning and operation of the local integrated energy system.

Due to the potential inefficiency, redundancy, or green tax, especially in the initial stage of establishing resilience, countries, enterprises, and consumers may have to pay a high price. However, record energy prices have shown that the heavy dependence of traditional energy systems on imported fossil fuels exposes its lack of resilience. In order to maintain the energy supply required for regional economic development and “the uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price” (IEA, 2019), actions must be taken to promote the diversification of energy mix and imports. The world has transitioned to a more sustainable energy system in the past few years. Wind and solar energy account for 10% of global power generation for the first time. The future energy mix led by low-carbon energy systems will bring greater energy security, affordability, and sustainability (ETC., 2022). At the same time, however, the unstable power generation capacity of clean energy affected by seasons, temperatures, and other factors still deserves attention. Global public and private sectors must take urgent action to improve the resilience of energy systems through multi-energy complementation and new energy storage, and meanwhile, improve the climate resilience of energy infrastructure.

Accelerating the transition of energy system is the key way for countries or regions to cope with escalating geopolitical and climate change risks, and to maintain local energy security and sustainable economic and social development. On the one hand, humankind has been facing the most severe energy crisis in the past 50 years (World Economic Forum, 2022a). The energy security problem caused by the Ukrainian war is forcing people to reflect on energy and foreign policy fundamentally (Climate Action Tracker, 2022). Even resource-rich countries have to import energy to some extent, and no country can achieve full energy independence any time soon (World Economic Forum, 2022b). On the other hand, the negative impact of extreme climate events on energy production and transport is rising. Extreme weather such as rainstorm, snowstorm, sandstorm, typhoon and tsunami often cause direct damage to energy infrastructure (Raman et al., 2022). For example, wind power plants and offshore oil and gas platforms in coastal areas are particularly vulnerable to severe weather. Energy transmission systems including power grid and oil and gas pipelines are also affected by earthquakes and blizzards. Therefore, governments must comprehensively optimize the management of energy systems, including leverage off international multilateral platforms to promote energy cooperation and resilience governance. Expanding local energy reserves and strengthening the climate adaptability of energy infrastructure are also worthwhile.

In addition to above causes, islands also face external problems caused by their geographical characteristics. An increasing number of islands around the world have been developed and utilized in recent decades (Harrison and Popke, 2018). Although the fuel on the islands is scarce and expensive, each island, as a matter of fact, owns more than one kind of renewable energy for power utilization (Kuang et al., 2016), which makes countries choose it as an ideal laboratory for the transition to clean energy. For example, El Hierro island, a Spanish island perfectly combining wind and hydro power generation through a power distribution control system, has become the first island in the world to fully harness renewable energy (Tsagkari et al., 2021). However, due to the unique geographical location, islands are more often to encounter extreme natural disasters, and local energy systems are also more vulnerable to damage (To et al., 2021). Most islands around the world, as significant local ecological resource clusters, must pay more attention to ecological conservation issues than inland areas. In addition, besides mineral development, islands may face growing energy demand brought by industrial transfer and expanding scale of tourism. Building resilient and comprehensive energy systems in island areas is therefore crucial for reducing energy cost, coordinating economic development and environmental protection, and improving the quality of life for local residents.

So far the installed capacity of renewable energy in Chongming has exceeded 570 MW, and the proportion of renewable energy power generation in the total social electricity sales has exceeded 30% (Shanghai Chongming District People’s Government, 2022a). In Chongming, nearly one-third of the electricity consumption is “green power” without carbon emission, ranking first in Shanghai. Among them, the most important renewable power in Chongming are photovoltaic and wind power (Figure 1).

In terms of solar photovoltaic, Chongming has an average annual sunshine time of more than 2,600 h, making it an ideal place to develop photovoltaic projects. By combining fishery farming with photovoltaic power generation, Chongming greatly improved the utilization efficiency and the economic value of land. On 29 November 2020, an integrated smart energy power station was successfully connected to the grid for power generation. This “fish-light complementary” project adopts AI, “Internet + ” and big data technologies to achieve intelligent operation and maintenance management of the power station. It has an average annual power generation of 120 million kWh, which can save 36,500 tons of standard coal compared with thermal power stations with the same generation capacity. In terms of wind power, located in the East Asian monsoon prevailing area, Chongming has open area with few obstructions. It provides the island with rich wind energy resources especially in the offshore area. Up to now, there are now five wind farms with a total installed capacity of about 223 MW in Chongming, and some of them are equipped with lithium iron phosphate batteries and own an energy storage system of about 2 MW.

From 2016 to 2021, despite the significant development of renewable energy, Chongming’s power generation increased by only 6%, while its electricity consumption increased by about 28% (Bureau of Statistics of Chongming District, 2017). Among them, the electricity consumption of the tertiary industry has increased by about 73% under the influence of the “ecological + tourism” development strategy (Figure 2). As Chongming continues to be hot in summer these years, the security of urban and rural electricity and gas is facing greater challenges. At the same time, the Chongming energy system also faces a systematic challenge. It has to adapt to climate change and achieve the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutrality. As an essential bearing space for the construction of “Ecological City” in Shanghai, Chongming has a relatively small industrial scale, and its carbon emission scale is the smallest among all districts in Shanghai. However, its carbon emission intensity is relatively high, especially in critical fields such as shipping and energy users (Cai et al., 2020). How to make full use of the local resource endowment to accelerate the transition of the energy system and adequately handle the triangular relationship among energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability is of great significance.

Since Shanghai proposed the concept of Chongming ecological island in 2001, relying on its unique geographical location and resources, Chongming has unswervingly followed the path of ecological priority and green development (Li et al., 2020). Table 1 shows the essential documents released during Chongming’s process of constructing the world-class ecological island, as well as the key and new formulation related to energy. In 2010, around the positioning of the ecological island, Chongming proposed to pay attention to energy utilization, energy conservation and emission reduction, and more scientific management. In 2016, the 13th Five-Year Plan for developing Chongming’s world-class ecological island was released (Shanghai Municipal People’s Shanghai Municipal People’s Government, 2016). As an upgrade from the plan to make it a modern ecological island, it puts forward higher requirements for developing natural gas, wind power, photovoltaic, and other clean energy and the construction of green and low-carbon energy development and utilization system. Up to 2020, Chongming has formed a preliminary framework for constructing a modern ecological island. The following year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Shanghai Government to jointly promote the construction of Chongming’s world-class ecological island and carbon-neutral demonstration area, and meanwhile brought Chongming into the list of zero-waste cities. According to the newly released implementation in 2022 (Shanghai Chongming District People’s Government, 2022b), the construction of new power system and zero coal city will become the critical direction of energy production in the ecological construction of Chongming. Comprehensively improving energy utilization efficiency and constructing infrastructure for energy conservation and emission reduction will contribute to its energy reduction. While there are multiple pathways for limiting warming and realizing carbon neutrality, all share standard features—for example, decarbonizing electricity, reducing and reversing forest and coastal wetland loss, electrifying buildings and industry, improving energy efficiency, and adopting active policy responding to CO₂ emission reduction, e.g., CCUS and CCRS (Climate Analytics, 2022). Fortunately, these approaches have been continuously implemented and innovated in Chongming.