Energy System Modelling for Transition to a net-Zero 2050 for EU via REPowerEU

Man0EUvRE is a project within the EU partnership Clean Energy Transition (CETP) that works to ensure that "piecewise and divided will be whole" within energy system analysis. The national energy and climate plans (NECP) are the EU commission's tools to follow-up on the European climate targets and at the same time ensure a stable access to energy for its inhabitants. Within Man0EUvRE, we use the existing NECP plans until 2030 as a base for energy system analyses, to assess the European situation. This also gives the project a way to assess what is needed, and how the NECPs should be revised to reach the shared European targets. Man0EUvRE will improve energy system modelling across Europe and provide open research-based answers. The objectives of this project are: 1. To develop robust pathways for the European energy system that meet climate targets towards net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and consider current policies like the REPowerEU plan. 2. To provide feedback and advice to the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) of the individual EU countries. 3. To improve the toolbox for conducting energy transition studies at both European and national level, which can support NECP generation, evaluation and future updates. 4. To publish consistent energy system modelling datasets and scenario projections at both European and national level. 5. To strengthen the coordination between national energy plans and EU-wide transition goals. The Norwegian research partners contribute in particular to the coordination of the project, to development of scenarios and to case study 2. The official start date for the project was 1 December 2023, but the international cooperation agreement (DESCA) was not signed until 4 December and the cooperation agreement with the Norwegian partners was signed just before christmas. Still, the project's group of work package leads had biweekly meetings since September and was well into the planning. Already in October 2023, the project was presented by Siri Mathisen on the annual CETP conference (Teams), and the project kick-off was 16-17 January hosted by SINTEF Energi in Trondheim, with participants from17 of the 19 partners, in addition to 1 voluntary partner. In February, the project webpage and LinkedIn page were launched (M5.1) and the project had a start-up workshop to begin the work with scenario generation (D51.), where also relevant stakeholders participated. In March, the project kept its General Assembly and presented drafts to data management plan and project management plan. These plans were finished in May according to the plan, together with the dissemination and communication plan (D5.2, D6.1 and D6.2). Herein lies that the project defined its data exchange format for internal use (M6.1). D1.1, a journal paper about the energy transition pathways to realize REPowerEU, should have been finished in June 2024, but was postponed to contain a parametrisation of the scenarios in addition to the qualitative scenarios. A draft of the paper has been ready since Juni, and the parametrised scenarios and scenario assumptions, in addition to a report describing the data sets (M1.2 and D1.2) got ready in the beginning of September. The planned submission of the full paper is in the end of October 2024. The next Milestone is in November 2024: M2.1: Developed model and dataset have been used for the initial pan-European study. Work package 3 has had monthly meetings since March, where the 9 national case studies can meet and discuss status. These meetings have also contained a specialist presentation with invited, relevant presenters. In March 2024, Michael Belsnes had a project pitch about Man0EUvRE in a CETP forum, and there have been regular meetings in the CETP Knowledge Community for our research area (TRI1) and for all participants. The preliminary scenarios were presented on the Energy Transition Week at NTNU in March 2024, and in June, they were presented in a workshop for all project partners - which always includes the Norwegian industrial partners - and from 23-25 September, the finished scenarios are presented on the Sustainable Places Conference in Luxembourg.

Man0EUvRE will improve energy system modelling across Europe and provide open research-based answers with ambitions to: 1. Develop robust pathways for the European energy system that meet climate targets towards net-zero GHG emissions and consider current policies 2. Provide feedback and advice to the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) of the individual EU countries. 3. Improve a set of models for conducting energy transition studies at European and national level, which can support NECP generation, evaluation and future updates. 4. Publish consistent energy system modelling datasets and scenario projections at European and national level. 5. Strengthen coordination between national energy plans and EU-wide transition goals. Man0EUvRE will push the research frontier by: • Bridging the gap between academic energy system models and real-life applications that support the clean energy transition with model development, • New insights in scenarios and pathways for Europe that lead us to a net-zero 2050 while incorporating the perspective of a secure energy supply described in the REPowerEU strategy and the Net Zero Industrial act, • Man0EUvRE will provide a pan-European perspective to the NECP development, enabling joint undertaking with lower costs. Man0EUvRE meets call module 1.1 objectives National vs European perspectives, Integrated energy system planning tools, Resilient planning and operation, Market design and regulation and Energy-economy models.