Project description
Exploring how new societal trends could shape energy efficiency and demand
Digitalisation has the potential to fundamentally change the way things are currently performed. While most digitalised processes are getting more and more efficient, not all of them are designed in a way that reduces energy consumption. New societal trends empowered by digitalisation such as shared economy, autonomous driving and low-carbon circular economy could lead to an increase in energy demand if they are not countered by measures with a strong focus on saving energy. The goal of the EU-funded NEWTRENDS project is to identify and quantify how new societal trends may affect energy demand. To achieve its goal, it will combine qualitative and quantitative cross-sectoral modelling and explore how energy demand models can be improved to represent new societal trends.
Objective
The EU 2050 Long-term Strategy develops scenarios for a climate-neutral EU in 2050 that aim at full deployment of low-carbon technologies or assume increased climate awareness of EU citizens translating into lifestyle changes, consumer choices, and a more circular economy.
While these scenarios integrate societal trends, further progress is necessary to enhance the empirical basis for such New Societal Trends and their representation in models. New Societal Trends have potentially a large (increasing or decreasing) impact on energy consumption and might lead to cross-sectoral demand shifts that go beyond extrapolation of presently observed trends (continuous trends) and may speed up when they are embraced by larger parts of the society (disruptive trends). Such trends include in particular: digitalisation of the economy and of private lives, Circular Economy and Low-carbon industry, and Shared Economy, which will be the main focus of the present project.
The novelty of our project arises from three perspectives:
A thematic perspective identifying and quantifying how New Societal Trends affect energy demand, using trend-evolution pathways.
A methodological perspective combining qualitative (foresight methods) with quantitative cross-sectoral modelling and exploring how energy demand models are to be improved to represent New Societal Trends. Several well-established models build the core of this project (INVERT/EE-Lab, FORECAST bottom-up model family, PRIMES energy system model, GEM-E3(-FIT)). All of which have been used extensively in the EU context for long-term projections and will be enhanced in this project. Further, policies will be represented in the demand models that influence such trends in the light of the EE1 Principle. Finally, a data perspective enhancing the empirical basis for modelling the impact of new societal trends through exploitation of new data sources (e.g. smart meter data) and empirical data (e.g. on behavioural changes).
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
80686 Munchen
Germany