Stories
Modelling is becoming more diverse and open, but challenges still remain in modelling of all sectors and tool coupling.
Stakeholder perspectives on the energy transition depend on contextual factors underlying the need for policies tailored to the transition issues and challenges in the different European countries and regions.
The energy transition guided by the people´s narrative has more land use than the market-based
Decarbonisation in the residential sector in the Peloponnese region in Greece cannot be achieved through the current national planning focusing on investing in new natural gas infrastructure.
Different projections on hydrogen use can significantly affect the power supply sector.
Reductions in final energy consumption by 2030 are mostly driven by the buildings sector, particularly in the Climate neutrality scenario
Involving and engaging stakeholders should be an integral part of each energy modelling process as it improves the quality of the results and increases their legitimacy.
There are many pathways for EU to become climate neutral by 2050, including one where fossil fuels still play a significant role as energy carriers
Decommissioning lignite power plants in the coal and carbon intensive region of Megalopolis in Greece cannot lead to a just transition if national planning keeps on promoting investments in new natural gas infrastructure.
By including additional energy carriers or more detailed specification of existing carriers a model’s flexibility in representing the energy system increases
Energy models meet manyuser needs, but still largely ignore social and environmental aspects – to increase policy relevance of models, it is necessary to integrate such non techno-economic factors.
Renewable- versus fossil-based power generation system buildouts will not result in much different wholesale electricity prices in 2030 unless policies capable of decoupling fossil fuel prices from the electricity price are in place.
Energy models affect energy policy – and policy affect models, too
Socio-political storylines can support the better representation of social and political aspects in energy models and thus a more realistic analysis of possible energy system designs
European building can substantially reduce energy demand by 2050 with the state-of-the-art building constructions and renovation
… the incentives for and ability of providing fiscal stimulus to climate neutral development differ in size, direction and inter-temporally across social storylines. Shortsighted policy makers would see an incentive to foster the government directed (GDI) storyline, while in the longer-term policy makers would prefer the people powered (PPO) storyline.
When it comes to energy efficiency measures in the European residential building sector, heat pumps display high energy saving potential and competitive cost-effectiveness in several countries.
We might be able to reach absolute decoupling of CO2 emissions (declining) and economy activity (rising) in Europe
There is a wide diversity of equally feasible solutions for a climate-neutral Europe
The existing energy demand models often do not consider some of the major modelling parameters relevant for energy transition
The existing National Energy and Climate Plan’s target of annual household renovations cannot lead to the decarbonisation of the residential sector by 2050 in Greece, while investing in electrification could lead to lower total costs at both the national and the household level, compared to current planning about investing in natural gas as a transition fuel.
System efficiency through district heating and cooling are important to include in modelling
Europe can become climate-neutral without fuel or electricity imports
The combined flexibility provided by different storage technologies can be a key to a net zero electricity system.
European building floor area is expected to increase by 16% by 2050
