On 20.04.17 Baltic Energy Technology Scenarios (BENTE) marked the beginning of the project phase with a start-up meeting. There were participants in attendance from Nordic Energy Research, the winners of the tender competition (VTT and Ea Energy Analyses) as well as 10 researchers from different Baltic research institutions.  The meeting was led by VTT and covered topics such as Baltic perspectives on BENTE, Energy and climate policies and targets, Studied scenarios and Input data review.

Baltic Energy Technology Scenarios (BENTE) is a research collaboration between the leading research institutions from the Baltic countries, the Nordic research team and the Nordic Energy Research.

BENTE will provide an in-depth scenario analysis of issues critical in the Baltic countries’ achieving their climate and energy targets in the most cost efficient way. Until 2030 national and EU climate and energy policies will play an important role in defining targets, while the perspective to 2050 can contribute to understanding the path beyond 2030, and the possible implications of decisions made before 2030.

The Baltic countries are well on track to meeting the EU targets for 2020, and demonstrate significant renewable energy shares in heating sector. The future scenarios will, among other things, shed light on further renewable energy integration pathways in the power sector, as well as address the security of supply issue, which is an important topic of discussion in the Baltic countries currently.

The project will include data collection and scenario specification, modelling with both the TIMES-VTT model and a Balmorel-model, and analysis based on the modelling results.

The project builds on the concept of the Nordic Energy Technology Perspectives (NETP) studies which have been published in 2013 and 2016, presenting technology pathways towards a carbon-neutral Nordic energy system in 2050.

The project timeline is from April 2017 to February 2018.