GianCarlo Tosato

Modelling EU-GCC energy systems and trade corridors: Long term sustainable, clean and secure scenarios

Purpose – This article is based on the REACCESS research project, sponsored by the European Commission, with the objectives of evaluating the technical, economic, and environmental aspects of present and future energy corridors between the European countries (EU27) and their main energy suppliers. GCC countries have an important role to play given their role in EU energy supply and in greenhouse gas emissions. The paper aims to discuss these issues.Design/methodology/approach – A single energy model was built by hard‐linking the TIMES integrated assessment model (TIAM‐World), the Pan European TIMES model (PET), and the RECOR model (REaccess CORridors), including more than 1,000 possible energy corridors supplying the European countries. Another major methodology advance was to create a hybrid objective function, combining the usual cost objective and a metric representing the supply risk incurred by EU27. The risk component was constructed via a novel approach that aggregates the elemental risk parameters...

Climate change mitigation scenarios and policies and measures: the case of Kazakhstan

This article illustrates the main difficulties encountered in the preparation of GHG emission projections and climate change mitigation policies and measures (P&M) for Kazakhstan. Difficulties in representing the system with an economic model have been overcome by representing the energy system with a technical-economic growth model (MARKAL-TIMES) based on the stock of existing plants, transformation processes, and end-use devices. GHG emission scenarios depend mainly on the pace of transition in Kazakhstan from a planned economy to a market economy. Three scenarios are portrayed: an incomplete transition, a fast and successful one, and even more advanced participation in global climate change mitigation, including participation in some emission trading schemes. If the transition to a market economy is completed by 2020, P&M already adopted may reduce emissions of CO2 from combustion by about 85 MtCO2 by 2030 – 17% of the emissions in the baseline (WOM) scenario. One-third of these reductions are likely to be obtained from the demand sectors, and two-thirds from the supply sectors. If every tonne of CO2 not emitted is valued up to US

Introduction: Energy Systems Modelling for Decision-Making

10 in 2020 and

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

20 in 2030, additional P&M may further reduce emissions by 110 MtCO2 by 2030.

Evaluation of green-certificates policies using the MARKAL-MACRO-Italy model

The role that energy modelling plays in improving the evidence base underpinning policy decisions is being increasingly recognized and valued. The Energy Technology Systems Analysis Program is a unique network of energy modelling teams from all around the world, cooperating to establish, maintain and expand a consistent energy/economy/environment/engineering analytical capability mainly based on the MARKAL/TIMES family of models, under the aegis of the International Energy Agency. Energy systems models like MARKAL/TIMES models provide technology rich, least cost future energy systems pathways and have been used extensively to explore least cost options for transitioning to an energy secure system and a low carbon future. This chapter presents an overview of ETSAP’s history and objectives, introduces the main principles of energy system modelling and summarizes the different chapters of the book.

Electricity and heating system in Kazakhstan: Exploring energy efficiency improvement paths

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.