Modelling ambitious climate targets and long-term strategies for Sweden – Describing the main the challenges : Presentation at The 5th Asian Energy Modelling Workshop Achieving a Sustainable 2050: Insights from Energy System Modelling

The aim is to share insights from modeling net zero CO2-emission pathways for Sweden from an energy system analysis approach, both with respect to results (how to get to net zero) and to modeling needs (what to include and how to link models). Sweden is a European country rich in biomass and energy intensive industries, thus rich in energy resources but also with challenging freight transports and industries to decarbonize. The model results shows that an increased use of biomass residues and waste heat significantly increase the possibility to meet the targets. TIMES-Sweden, an energy system optimization model of the comprehensive Swedish energy system, was used to explore different low carbon and net zero emission pathways until 2030 and 2045. In order to do so, the model has (and currently is) being updated to include fossil free alternatives to all energy conversion and production processes within the model. When doing so we take a process-oriented approach, thus describe important energy intensive industries (e.g. pulp & paper, iron & steel and cement) in detail. The model is driven by the demand of energy intensive products and services (e.g. heating of single-houses, production of ton steel and person-km in cars). The demand projections were determined by soft-linking TIMES-Sweden with a national CGE model, in which we relied on multiple direction-specific connection points