October 6 – 8th 2020
Due to Covid-19 this year’s conference was held online.
The fourth conference of the Energy Modelling Platform for Europe (EMP-E) took place on 6th– 8th October 2020 and was hosted by the European Commission DG Research & Innovation. The conference was put together in co-operation with the H2020 Energy Modelling Group, made up of eight Horizon 2020 projects.
The EMP-E brings together scientists and policy makers working on current energy modelling and energy policy issues, looking at the current and future opportunities for change. This annual conference seeked to bridge the gap between scientific modellers and policy makers at all levels, with the help of European Commission representatives. To reach beyond local, national and regional policymakers, and engage with the widest possible range of stakeholders involved in the EU energy system, modelling and policy insights that have been developed during the conference will be opened up to a peer review process and compiled into an informative report.
The platform creates an environment for exchange and sharing of ideas, where research and development in energy modelling currently undertaken across Europe can reach policy makers and other modellers. By creating this space to share ideas, European energy modelling data, tools and results can help inform the next energy innovations and policy.
[borlabs-cookie type=”content-blocker”][/borlabs-cookie]The EMP-E aims to foster a more interactive agenda with plenaries, focus groups and a networking space. This year four plenaries and eight focus groups discussed diverse topics, surrounding climate neutrality for the European Green Deal, as well as more general issues such as the impact of COVID-19 on the current energy system. The following themes were taken up in the different sessions:
- Impact of COVID-19 on the energy system: What are the consequences for future energy modelling?
- Climate Neutral Pathways, scenarios and storylines: Lessons learned for the European Green Deal
- Socio and economic impacts of decarbonisation: how to design a transition that is socially fair an economically viable?
- Sector integration: Decarbonisation through multi-energy carrier integration
- Smart cities, Smart grids and digitalisation: Modelling insights and lessons learned
- Circularity, use of raw material
- Consumer and Citizen Engagement
- Transformation of the Energy system: centralization vs further decentralisation
- Climate neutrality: energy modelling, weather, and climate
- Uncertainty and modelling: lessons learned and uncertainty in modelling
- Energy modelling tools contributions to National Energy/Climate plans
- Infrastructure for integrating open-source models across spatial and sectoral scales to facilitate openness and transparency
EMP-E 2020 successfully contributed to the understanding of potential applications of the wide range of models and to strengthening ties with policymakers at all levels. This cooperation is essential to reach an efficient local, national, and regional policy implementation related to the European energy system. EMP-E 2020 is also important for joint discussions between EC representatives on the needs of researchers and on the key challenges on implementing climate-energy policies.
The results of the meeting will be published after a peer-review process in a Journal special issue which will be provided as input to high-level events.
Moreover, the results, as well as all presentations and key messages of the sessions are now accessible through the openENTRANCE project website.
A recording of all sessions can be found on the EMP-E’s YouTube channel.
