Team

Energy market scenarios and future energy and commodity procurement options

On behalf of INEOS in Cologne, EWI analysed the potential development of gas demand – in case the current level of ambition concerning the expansion of renewable energies and the decrease of reduction of energy consumption cannot be accelerated. First, three key mechanisms for achieving climate targets are identified: Decreasing energy consumption, electrification of the final energy consumption and increasing the share of renewable energies. Unfortunately, barriers like rebound effects, slow technology adaption rates and acceptance issues are often neglected. Energy demand could thus be underestimated. One possible outcome is a rising demand for natural gas and an increasing import share. A theoretical alternative to gas imports would be the exploration of unconventional gas sources (“fracking”) in Germany. However, the study concludes that the exploration of unconventional gas sources is unlikely due to environmental risks, public concerns and Germany’s geographical location close to cheap and abundant gas reserves.

Study comparison sector coupling

In April 2018 ewi ER&S published the study “Kosteneffiziente Umsetzung der Sektorenkopplung” on behalf of the Ministry of Economics, Innovation, Digitisation and Energy of North Rhine-Westphalia. In June 2018, the “dena-Leitstudie Integrierte Energiewende” was published with ewi ER&S as the principal scientific assessor. Both studies analyse cross-sector strategies for achieving climate targets in the medium and long term. Within the framework of the “Studienvergleich Sektorenkopplung “, similarities and differences in the design of the study are pointed out transparently and the differences in the results are presented in detail.

dena-Leitstudie Integrierte Energiewende (dena Study on Integrated Energy Transition)

The dena-Leitstudie Integrierte Energiewende develops and compares transformation pathes for the energy system in Germany with the objective to attain the climate-political goals by 2050. It pursues an innovative cross-sector scenario approach. At the same time, it is based on the branch knowledge of more than 60 partners from all relevant sectors and on the continuuos exchange with important actors from politics, society and science. The objective is to give impulses for designing the energy system by 2050. ewi ER&S is the main scientific advisor to the study. The central results of the study say that Germany will be able to attain its goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80 as well as by 95 % up to the year 2050 if the strains in all sectors are increased. Therefore, the roll-out and system integration of renewable energy sources must be forced, the end energy consumption has to be reduced by extensive energy efficiency efforts, and synthetic regenerative energy sources must be used on a big scale. A broad mix of technologies and energy sources makes the transformation of the energy system more cost-efficient than a fortified use of electricity-based applications.