Energy security, policy and technology in South East Europe: Presenting and applying an energy security index to Croatia Vladimir Franki * , Alfredo Vi  skovi  c Faculty of Engineering Rijeka, University of Rijeka, Vukovarska 58, 51 000 Rijeka, Croatia article info Article history: Received 11 May 2015 Received in revised form 15 July 2015 Accepted 21 July 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Energy security Generation mix Portfolio diversification Electricity markets South East Europe abstract During the last decade a number of long-held tenets of the energy sector have been rewritten. With the rise of new technologies and the help of policies favouring RES (renewable energy sources) a trans- formation of our understanding of the energy system and its possibilities has encouraged dramatic changes in the World's energy landscape. As some importers became exporters, countries long-defined as significant energy exporters became centres of demand growth. In these turbulent times, it is the awareness of the dynamics underpinning energy markets that is crucial for both decision-makers and investors to form informed opinions on how to reconcile a string of technical, environmental, economic and social factors in order to provide for best solutions regarding country specifics and demands. The right combination of policies and technologies could fuel economic growth, whilst still providing secure and affordable energy in line with low-carbon goals. Those that might successfully anticipate energy developments can derive a significant advantage on the market, while those that fail to recognise the importance of new movements risk making poor policy and investment decisions. In this light and following the accession of Croatia in the European Union, a number of questions are raised regarding the country's energy sector legal framework and development policy and their ability to cope with the demands faced. Taking Croatia as a practical example, the impact of different development strategies is considered through the application of a novel approach suggested by the paper. This study presents an overview aimed to help clarify some of the aspects behind forming a successful framework capable of making the right decisions for the future, today. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Influenced by a string of factors, the electricity sector has gone through some extensive changes during the last few decades that led to new understandings of optimal generation mix selection and inevitably caused the generating portfolios to dramatically change their landscape. In addition, raised concerns over the environ- mental issues started to present a determining factor when forming energy policies and environmental pollution emerged as a global issue, directly related to the quality of life [1]. There has been an estimated temperature increase between 0.6 and 1  C in the last 150 years and an estimated potential increase by 1.4e5.8  C for the period 1990e2100 [2] sparked mostly by CO 2 emissions [3]. The EU (European Union) is striving to be the leader in implementing renewable energy solutions as main sources of electricity in an effort to overcome the GHG (greenhouse gas) problem achieving a low carbon electricity sector in line with global concerns regarding the environmental issues caused by the greenhouse effect [4]. At present, the electricity sector is the single largest contributor to GHG emissions. It is, therefore, also expected that this sector will have to be called upon to carry the biggest load when the required reductions in emissions are concerned requiring the adoption of low-carbon generation technologies [5]. In other words, it is now necessary to evaluate not only the economic efficiency per type of generation technology, but also to take into account the associated effects it has on the environment [6]. As energy sources and con- sumption are directly related to environmental quality and crucial resources [7], energy development has, over recent years, been increasingly accompanied by major global concerns of over- population, pollution, water depletion, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and global climate deterioration [8]. Due to the raised awareness of the negative environmental impact of the energy * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ385 51 651444; fax: þ385 51 651416. E-mail address: vladimir.franki@gmail.com (V. Franki). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/energy http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.07.087 0360-5442/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Energy xxx (2015) 1e14 Please cite this article in press as: Franki V, Vi skovi c A, Energy security, policy and technology in South East Europe: Presenting and applying an energy security index to Croatia, Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2015.07.087