Integrated Infrastructure Planning and 2050 Climate Neutrality

The report analyses the role that integrated infrastructure planning plays in the transformation of the European energy system into a climate-neutral energy system by 2050. The focus is on energy infrastructures and their role in the transformation process, notably:

• Electricity infrastructure
• Gas infrastructure (including both natural gas and future hydrogen infrastructures)
• Infrastructure related to CO2 from carbon capture, transport, storage and use.
• Heat infrastructure and its contribution to sector coupling.

The main objective of this study is to quantitatively develop an integrated infrastructure planning procedure in Europe that considers the different energy vectors of electricity, natural gas, hydrogen and CO2, their dynamic interaction and the geographical dimension across the EU. Instead of deriving individual cost-optimal infrastructure for one energy vector or country, the system derived using this integrated approach results from an overall optimisation based on common framework conditions across all Member States and energy vectors. In this approach, the endogenous optimisation concentrates on energy infrastructures including storage and flexibility options, while implicitly considering distribution infrastructures for electricity and heat. 

The study’s starting point is the hypothesis that deeper levels of integrated planning of energy infrastructures, both geographically across Europe and between the different infrastructure sectors, are required to put Europe on track to net-zero emissions by 2050. 

Electricity infrastructures are highly developed but face new requirements concerning changing energy generation and storage technologies and the need to cope with high shares of fluctuating energy sources and rising electricity demand. Gas infrastructures are also highly developed, but fossil gas demand is expected to decrease substantially. This decrease will only be partially offset by a shift from fossil-based natural gas to hydrogen. Finally, CO2-related infrastructures are new and will be driven by the contribution they can make to climate neutrality through Carbon Capture, Use and Storage. In our analysis, these infrastructures are characterized as sectors and fully modelled on the transmission level. As these infrastructures are closely interrelated, the question is whether coherent planning and development processes across all infrastructures could be beneficial to the transformation process, which already requires substantial investments in new technologies. 

The study covers a large part of the European continent (33 countries in total, including EU27, Norway, UK, Switzerland, and Energy Community Parties on the Balkans), considering countries at national level and Europe as a whole.