Mathematical models contributes to the green transition

If Denmark is to achieve the ambitious climate goals of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the overall energy system must phase out fossil fuels and integrate renewable energy. It will be crucial for the green transition that the sectors of the energy system, e.g. the electricity, heating and gas systems, can be coupled to achieve coherence and synergy.

Coordinated cross-sectoral planning enables improvements in efficiency, increased use of renewable energy and additional flexibility to deal with fluctuations in production. Coordinated planning contributes to sustainability and security of supply.

The potential for sectoral coupling will be assessed within a quantitative framework that includes both a technical description of each sector and takes into account market-based interactions between the sectors, including different objectives and inter-competitive conditions. The project will develop new models and methods for consolidating the technical and economic aspects.

The modelling consists of planning and optimizing operations and investment, taking into account technical characteristics, establishing equilibrium models for market interactions, and on this basis, designing policy incentive structures to promote coordinated planning. Given the complexity of the models, an important part of the project will also involve the development of specially adapted solution methods.

- The project will propose planning models for sectoral coupling that can take into account both economic and operational aspects. I thus hope that it can contribute with new insights into the potential of sector coupling in terms of market design and regulation, says Trine Krogh Boomsma.

Trine's research speciality is operations research, in particular, optimization under uncertainty and its applications in the energy sector.

Independent Research Fund Denmark contributes DKK 2.8 million, which makes it possible to associate a PhD student with the project for three years, as well as to increase collaboration with two international researchers (Antonio J. Conejo and Steven A. Gabriel) in the subject.

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