European Energy Vision 2060: Charting Diverse Pathways for Europe's Energy Transition

TL;DR

This paper develops four detailed long-term scenarios for Europe's energy transition by 2060, considering social, technological, economic, political, and geopolitical uncertainties to guide climate-neutral strategies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel qualitative scenario framework for Europe's energy future, integrating narratives with quantitative analysis to support policy planning.

Findings

Four diverse energy transition scenarios are developed and characterized.

Two scenarios are quantitatively analyzed to demonstrate the approach.

Scenarios highlight the impact of geopolitical and internal divisions on climate goals.

Abstract

Europe is warming at the fastest rate of all continents, experiencing a temperature increase of about 1{\deg}C higher than the corresponding global increase. Aiming to be the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 under the European Green Deal, Europe requires an in-depth understanding of the potential energy transition pathways. In this paper, we develop four qualitative long-term scenarios covering the European energy landscape, considering key uncertainty pillars -- categorized under social, technological, economic, political, and geopolitical aspects. First, we place the scenarios in a three-dimensional space defined by Social dynamics, Innovation, and Geopolitical instabilities. These scenarios are brought to life by defining their narratives and focus areas according to their location in this three-dimensional space. The scenarios envision diverse futures and include distinct features. The EU Trinity scenario pictures how internal divisions among EU member states, in the context of global geopolitical instability, affect the EU climate targets. The REPowerEU++ scenario outlines the steps needed for a self-sufficient, independent European energy system by 2050. The Go RES scenario examines the feasibility of achieving carbon neutrality earlier than 2050 given favourable uncertain factors. The NECP Essentials scenario extends current national energy and climate plans until 2060 to assess their role in realizing climate neutrality. The scenarios are extended by incorporating policies and economic factors and detailed in a Qualitative to Quantitative (Q2Q) matrix, linking narratives to quantification. Finally, two scenarios are quantified to illustrate the quantification process. All the scenarios are in the process of being quantified and will be openly available and reusable.