Myopic pathway optimisation of an unprecedentedly large multi-sector European energy system towards climate neutrality

Kurzfassung

As of 2025, there is a wide consensus in research that future energy systems need to be interconnected on a large scale, decentralised, and integrated across multiple sectors to reach climate neutrality. A persisting challenge of research is to find optimal pathways towards such systems. There are lots of studies that cover parts of these characteristics, yet studies that cover all of them are rare for a multitude of reasons. Therefore, we are presenting a case study of a large-scale energy system optimisation model for the European continent that comprises more than 100 technologies and integrates the sectors electricity, gas, heat and transport. Starting from today's state we calculate myopic pathways in hourly resolution and a spatial detail of 57 nodes towards climate neutrality in 2050 for ten-year steps and a variety of different scenarios. These differentiate between high and low hydrogen import costs in future worlds dominated by the use of electricity, hydrogen or synthetic fuels. Our results show how large shares of volatile renewable energy sources can be integrated into the energy system. Key insights are that all analysed future decarbonised systems are dominated by electricity from photovoltaics followed by wind turbines. Short-term flexibility is provided by thermal heat storage units and battery-electric vehicles, gas caverns and hydro reservoirs act as seasonal storage. A developing hydrogen network is built up from existing and some newly built pipelines.