FOCUS ON RESEARCH

Alternatives for the Transition to
Sustainable Energy Services in Northern Europe

Challanges The introduction of competitive electricity and gas markets offers a significant challenge to the transition to a sustainable and flexible energy infrastructure.

Long-term planning With the advent of competition and increased uncertainty, the traditional long-term planning activities of governments and monopoly utilities have been severely diluted, causing potential gridlock and under-investment in energy infrastructures with significant economic and social consequences.

SINTEF, MIT and Chalmers The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and its Foundation for Scientific and Industrial Research (SINTEF) have - in co-operation with Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Chalmers University of Technology - established a Joint Research Program on Alternatives for the Transition to Sustainable Energy Services (TRANSES) in Northern Europe. The program is an essential drive for long-term European-US scientific-industrial cooperation and dialogue in a field vital to society.

Objective The program is designed to serve as a venue among key stakeholders based on modeling/ simulation and evaluation of alternative strategies and evolution paths for the energy infrastructures of Northern Europe.

The fundamental goals of this endeavor will be:

• to provide an integrated toolbox of computational tools, methods and databases for analysis and decision support under uncertainty
• to outline and evaluate the likely technology portfolios, deployment paths and policy options that governments, industries and communities will need in order meet their energy service needs in a cost-effective and sustainable manner in a liberalized energy market
• to create an international arena for dissemination of results, dialogue and exchange of ideas in order to gain a swifter transition to sustainable energy systems
• PhD education and long-term scientific cooperation between the institutions involved

User benefit The TRANSES program will create an international arena for dissemination of results, dialogue and exchange of ideas in order to gain a swifter transition to sustainable energy services. The active role of the stakeholders is a basic element in the methodology developed by MIT for this type of scenario analysis in order to enhance the relevance and usefulness of the program. To facilitate this role, regular meetings (workshops, seminars, etc.) will be arranged where PhD students, researchers and scientists can interact with stakeholders and invited guest speakers.

Skills development By active contribution to the outlining and evaluation of relevant scenarios, the stakeholder group will gain access to resource personnel from international research and educational institutions, as well as computational tools and databases to suppport decisions on deployment of energy technology and infrastructure. Furthermore, the stakeholders will also have the possibility of placing own personnel and PhD students into the program.

The stakeholders will thus gain a clearer understanding of the likely technology portfolios, deployment paths and policy options that could/should be pursued in a liberalised and changing energy market.