Planning of electricity and gas networks at European level / EU project: Integration of large shares of renewable energy requires a trans-national strategy

Brussels/Berlin (ots) - The EU countries should develop a joint
strategy for the development of European energy infrastructures.
According to the participants in the SUSPLAN (PLANning for
SUStainability) project, this is a basic requirement for further
expanding renewable energy and climate protection beyond current
targets. The recently finalised research project SUSPLAN which ran
for about three years was carried out by a European consortium of
research institutes, universities and consultants and funded by the
EU Commission.

The SUSPLAN project examined the challenges involved in the
Europe-wide integration of large amounts of renewable energy in the
period from 2030 to 2050. Four scenarios were assumed, each with a
different level of renewable development. The most ambitious scenario
assumes that by 2050 renewables will meet over 50 per cent of total
final energy demand and about 70 per cent of power generation in
Europe.

The SUSPLAN project used the example of nine European regions to
analyse how the structure of generation and demand will change, and
how the electricity and gas grids will have to adapt to this. The
regional case studies included the Rhein-Neckar region of Germany,
Austria, Spain, Italy, the Pomeranian region of Poland, Serbia,
Romania, Norway and the Scottish Outer Hebrides group of islands.
Each region develops its own generation structure with a growing
share of renewable energy according to its natural resources, and
will be increasingly dependent on the exchange of electricity and gas
with neighbouring regions. Some regions will become large scale
exporters of renewable electricity while others will become
importers.

The investigation of trans-national challenges for the European
energy infrastructure revealed that there is a particular need to
expand electricity transmission capacity between South-Western and
Central Europe and between Northern and Southern Europe. Regarding
Europe's gas supply, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the Balkans will become
more important as transit regions in the coming decades.

The project was coordinated by SINTEF Energy Research in Norway.
The Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (dena) - the German Energy Agency -
is one of 16 European SUSPLAN project partners from 12 countries.
SUSPLAN was established under the European Commission's Seventh
Framework Programme and is funded by the Directorate-General for
Energy. A concluding presentation and discussion of the results took
place at an international conference on October 7 2011 in Brussels.

A summary of the SUSPLAN results, in the form of a brochure and an
interactive presentation, and further information on the SUSPLAN
project can be found on the Internet at www.susplan.eu.

Press contact:
Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (dena) - the German Energy Agency,
Nadia Grimm, Chausseestrasse 128a, 10115 Berlin, Germany
Tel: +49 (0)30 72 61 65-804, Fax: +49 (0)30 72 61 65-699,
E-mail: grimm@dena.de, Internet: www.dena.de