On Modeling European Energy Exchanges as Small-World Phenomena

In the last years, the European Commission adopted an energy policy for Europe with several documents including an action plan to meet the major energy challenges Europe has to face. A farsighted diversified yearly mix of energies was suggested to countries, aiming at increasing security of supply and efficiency, but a systemic view of energy exchanges between states is still missing. Energy import/export exchanges between European States suggest that economic/political relations between countries cause unpredictable behaviors for the European energy exchange network. This network is herein investigated from a modeling point of view. European annual exchanges of energy appear to present Small World phenomena, when supposing that connections between States are characterized by probability values depending on economic/political relations between countries.