The European Union has committed to decarbonise by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. While the energy sector will play a crucial role in European strategies to decarbonise, renewables and the accompanying transmission and distribution infrastructure will require space both on land and at sea.
Space is a limited and precious resource that can be used in several ways, including for:
Biodiversity protection and restoration
Renewable energy infrastructure deployment
Urban and suburban development
Agriculture
Since there are many options for using the available space, there is a great competition over it, which can lead to the increase of conflicts.
Also, while there are different pathways available that outline different scenarios for the decarbonisation of Europe, the implementation of each of them would have different spatial and water implications for the needed infrastructure.
Project results
Although renewable energy sources and electricity grid infrastructure will require an increasing amount of space on land and at sea, a current lack of data on the needed spatial and water requirements poses a challenge towards energy system planning and concurrent policy developments.
Considering this challenge, RGI commissioned the Reiner Lemoine Institute (RLI) under the Energy&Space Workstream to model the spatial and water requirements needed for four different decarbonisation scenarios. As a result of this analysis, an interactive open-source tool was developed and a Summary Report with key findings published, following the discussions regarding the impact of this work during our Workshop Energy&Space: Overcoming the challenge of limited space and water to achieve a decarbonised energy system.
The findings of this project aim at stimulating discussions between interested stakeholders, contributing to considerations about designating suitable acceleration areas for renewables, adequately planning electricity grid deployment steps and incorporating resource-based constraints into the energy system modelling and planning.
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Energy & Space Interactive tool
Commissioned by RGI, the interactive tool presents the results of a comparative analysis of spatial requirements, stemming from the implementation of different decarbonisation scenarios.
Explore the project outcomes
contact
Nathália Pimentel
nathalia@renewables-grid.euManager – Communication & Energy Systems
Dr. Andrzej Ceglarz
andrzej@renewables-grid.euDirector – Energy Systems
Nathália Pimentel
nathalia@renewables-grid.euManager – Communication & Energy Systems
Dr. Andrzej Ceglarz
andrzej@renewables-grid.euDirector – Energy Systems
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Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect those of the EU or LIFE Programme. Neither the EU nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.