Daniele Grosso

Coupling World and European models: energy trade and energy security in Europe

Energy modelling can provide a knowledge basis for tackling the security of energy supply issue at different geographical levels. This chapter presents an application of the coupling of the global TIMES Integrated Assessment Model and of the Pan European TIMES model through a series of trade links described and characterised in the REACCESS corridor model. The coupling was developed during the EU FP7 REACCESS project and was further improved and updated during a follow-up phase. The application focuses on the analysis of security of supply to Europe via energy corridors. A new methodology for the assessment of energy security, addressing the risk associated to each supply, is presented together with a scenario analysis related to some of the most populated of the EU’s Member States and to the European Union as a whole. The scenario analysis results show a sample of the possible assessments that stakeholders might be willing to rely on to address the effects of communitarian policies and targets: the preformed analysis, for example, unveils that a risk reduction at communitarian level may not univocally be translated into a benefit for individual Member States.

Modelling Urban Transport Sector: A Methodology Based on OSeMOSYS Model Generator

Transport sector could play a relevant role in future energy decarbonisation pathways contributing to energy consumption and pollutant emissions reduction. Planning in the transport sector requires that policy makers be supported with scientifically sound tools, which are able to take into account the peculiar aspects of transport system analyses, especially at urban scale. One of these peculiarities is the spatial dimension of origin-destination travels, that usually cannot be properly modelled by the common bottom-up energy model generators. These generators are used to build models of the energy systems at different geographic scales, including the urban one, and are suitable for forecasting scenario analyses over mid-long term time horizons, e.g. for studying the decarbonisation pathway feasibility. To face the spatial dimension issue, a new concept – the transport corridor – has been introduced into the open source optimization model generator OSeMOSYS, by acting on the structure of its equations. The proposed methodology, in particular, allows the definition of the minimum cost configuration of an urban transport system, with a competition among transport modes and technologies able to fulfil the mobility demand, under different technical and environmental constraints. This approach can comparatively evaluate the impacts of alternative policy options with a higher granularity with respect to more conventional modelling techniques. As such, it could be useful in assessing, under a mid-long term perspective, the effectiveness of specific local measures (like restricted traffic areas) or actions promoting sustainable mobility (as car-pooling/sharing initiatives), supporting the identification of issues and investment priorities.

Impacts of Non-Programmable Renewable Sources Penetration on the Italian Energy System: A Tool for Scenario Analyses

The penetration of renewable sources in the national energy mix is necessary for most of the industrialised countries in order to comply with the ever-challenging constraints imposed by environmental impact reduction policies. However, a big family of renewable sources have the peculiarity of being non-programmable, that is very variable throughout hours and seasons. While the traditional electrical grid management philosophy has always been oriented towards the timely fulfilment of the demand via a set of conventional uninterruptible (or hardly so) large power plants complemented with a set of quickly adjustable smaller power plants, the integration of non-programmable renewable (NPR) power plants may represent a challenge. The planning of this kind of plants has to be accurately assessed as an over-installation may result in an overproduction of electricity that the existing electrical network cannot be able to transmit and the system to absorb. The paper presents a tool, inspired by previous NREL studies, to evaluate the effects of the penetration of NPR sources in the Italian energy mix. The study starts from the definition of the load profile of the country and it assesses the percentage of load that can be fulfilled by NPR sources until possible, taking into account the un-flexibilities of the electrical system, mainly due to the base load power plants that can hardly be adjusted. If more NPR electricity is instantly produced, this represents a waste (of energy and money). Thanks to the developed tool, a set of possible scenarios for the different geographical areas of Italy are presented and discussed, focusing in particular on the increase in the flexibility of the electrical system and in the penetration rate of NPRS.