The course participants hard at work under supervision of tutor Hans Ravn. January 2010
Baltic Development Forum in cooperation with Ea Energy Analyses held a one week introductory course on Energy Scenario Analyses with the Balmorel model 25-29th January 2010 for experts from the Baltic Sea Region.
The recent energy report Sustainable Energy Scenarios - Setting an agenda for the future, initiated by Baltic Development Forum, financed by Nordic Council of Ministers and developed by Ea Energy Analyses, documents that all countries around the Baltic Sea Region could profit through closer cooperation and energy planning. The process of developing the report was an excellent opportunity for a dialogue between the stakeholders in the Baltic Sea Region – politicians, civil servants, industry and the R&D community. Cooperation will strengthen work on the energy scenarios with the objective of promoting broad consensus on a list of prioritised energy project that can improve energy security in the Baltic Sea Region, establish an efficient energy market, reduce CO2 emissions as well as promote renewable energies.
The best way to identify common opportunities is through sharing energy data, knowledge and analytical instruments. One of the recommendations resulting from the associated stakeholder discussions was to: “establish a common regional training program to strengthen the capacities in energy planning. Such a program should aim at developing at developing the exchange of experiences and best practices among officials at local and national levels.” Stakeholders included among others the EU Commissioner for Energy, the Baltic Sea Energy Cooperation (BASREC), the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference Working Group on Energy and Climate Change, and the Union of Baltic Cities Energy Commission.
The Balmorel course held in Copenhagen was a first step towards such a common regional training program. The aim of the course was to provide the participants with useful knowledge on the energy planning tools that can help turn challenges into opportunities and further a common approach.
The course was structured so as to combine lecture style instruction with a significant amount of hands-on group work to allow participants to gain the basic Balmorel modelling skills necessary to carry out their own analyses on relevant regional and interregional issues. Each group prepared energy scenarios which were then presented to experts who challenged the conclusions of the groups thus enhancing the learning value of the course.
The Baltic Sea Region is characterised by a high diversity of energy systems, such as substantial representation of coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydro, wind and biomass based production, as well as challenges related to electricity transmission bottlenecks, extensive use of district heating and combined heat and power generation. The Baltic Sea Region is thus also well suited as a case for such a course. During the scenario development the groups themselves chose to investigate a range of relevant themes such as energy security, coordinated transmission planning, intelligent renewable energy development and harmonisation of regulatory framework to pursue regional energy and climate policy objectives.
The course also provided insights into energy policies and systems and presentations of selected studies on regional wind power integration, new interconnectors, as well as operation and optimization of combined heat and power system.
Course participants were experts from Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Lithuania, and Sweden working with strategic energy planning and market development within energy companies, authorities and transmission system operators as well as university students.
The course was made possible through sponsoring from Fabrikant Mads Clausen Fond. Expectations are that this course was the first of a series of courses aiming to establish long-term cooperation and knowledge exchange among system experts.
The course participants hard at work under supervision of tutor Hans Ravn. January 2010