"The future of the European energy system: Unveiling the blueprint towards a climate-neutral economy. Workshop Synthesis Report": Sustainable Energy Transitions Laboratory (SENTINEL) project

To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and keep the current trajectory of the global temperature increase below 1.5ºC, the transformation of the current energy systems into decarbonised ones is profound. However, deciding on how the future energy systems shall be designed, to guarantee energy security, social and environmental sustainability as well as energy accessibility and affordability of energy across the population raises significant challenges. The increasing complexity and interrelatedness of various dimensions of energy led to a situation, in which existing modelling tools do not capture enough of the technological, geographic, societal and environmental details, important for designing a decarbonised energy system. The EC-funded H2020 SENTINEL project (Sustainable Energy Transitions Laboratory) in order to overcome these shortcomings and develop a new energy system modelling framework has applied a carefully defined, participatory approach including three steps: i. Investigating how to adjust modelling tools and check their behaviour in three case studies: national (focusing on Greece), regional (dedicated to the Nordic region) and continental (dealing with Europe). ii. Engaging stakeholders representing the policymaking sphere, energy industry, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and scientific community, to understand the needs of modelling users. iii. Involving external actors in SENTINEL models’ application processes to give an overview about how the models work. This document presents one of the steps undertaken to realise the actions described above. It summarises the online workshop “The Future of the European Energy System: Unveiling the blueprint towards a climate-neutral economy” that took place on 9 December 2020, with over 40 energy experts from the policymaking sphere, energy industry, NGOs, scientific community and the SENTINEL consortium. The workshop included Plenary sessions and six (6) Parallel thematic breakout sessions, touching upon different aspects of the European energy system: (i). Transforming the power sector: increasing ambitions for GHG emissions reduction & RES targets; (ii). Sector coupling: implementing smart energy systems and accelerating the shift to sustainable mobility; (iii). Decarbonisation of industry and Carbon Capture and Utilisation and Storage & Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage; (iv.) Modelling energy demand in the building sector- a transition towards zero carbon society; (v.) Environmental aspects & implications, including the circular economy; and (vi.) Socio-economic aspects & implications, including recovery packages.The authors would like to thank all stakeholders for dedicating their time and providing with important input during the consultation process. The authors would, also, like to acknowledge the support from the EC. The content of this report is the sole responsibility of its authors and does not necessary reflect the views of the EC. Please note that this document is a changed version of the original workshop summary report available on the SENTINEL website (https://sentinel.energy/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/SENTINEL_-European-Workshop-Synthesis-Report.pdf), as due to data protection aspects, it does not include the participants list