7.
As the Commission's in-house science service, the Joint Research Centre's mission is to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support throughout the whole policy cycle. The JRC Institute for Energy and Transport (JRC-IET) is one of 7 scientific institutes belonging to the European Commission Joint Research Centre. The JRC-IET staff is located in Petten, Netherlands and Ispra, Italy. The mission of the JRC-IET is to provide support to European Union policies and technology innovation to ensure sustainable, safe, secure and efficient energy production, distribution and use, and to foster sustainable and efficient transport in Europe. For more information, please visit
http://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/institutes/iet
Among other activities, the JRC aims to provide a solid and comprehensive understanding of energy security in support of EU policy, notably in relation to fossil fuels (mainly gas and oil) and power systems. The aim of the JRC's Energy Security, Systems and Market Unit is to aid and inform the Member States and European Institutions on issues relevant to ensuring the uninterrupted physical availability of energy products on the market at an affordable price for all consumers. The JRC assesses how different policy options help shape an energy system resilient to shocks and adverse trends whilst satisfying society's energy needs.
The call for expressions of interest is divided into 4 sub-lists as follows:
Sub-list A — regulatory, techno-economic and socio-economic studies on the electricity system:
In the last decades the European energy sector has gone through radical changes. Growing concerns on market competitiveness, climate change and energy security have led the European Union to set ambitious policy goals which have called for a major restructuring of the entire energy system.
The JRC supports policy developments in the energy sector through independent scientific research. In order to complement the current JRC activities, scientific and technical support is expected in the regulatory, economic and socio-technical fields.
In particular, external support is envisaged in the following areas:
— analysis of the rising interdependency between the different layers of the electricity system, including the physical, social, market and temporal layers,
— analysis of the main regulatory challenges to ensure a smooth transition to the new electricity system,
— analysis of the socio-economic aspects of energy markets, both regarding the supply and the demand side. This area includes the use of complexity sciences, computational economics and econometric approaches to investigate the behaviours of consumers, retailers and other social actors in the evolving energy markets,
— analysis of new smart grid applications and solutions, market value and business models,
— development and analysis of future electricity system scenarios and identification of policy recommendations,
— new tools for planning exercises.
Sub-list B — techno-economic and socio-economic studies regarding the unconventional hydrocarbon sector:
This sub-list covers services for technical, geological, socio-economic and forward-looking studies on unconventional hydrocarbon extraction. The purpose of these potential studies would be to provide the JRC-IET with the scientific and technical support and expertise relevant to understanding the short-, medium- and long-term implications of the worldwide increase in the development of unconventional gas and oil and their by-products on European and international energy markets.
At present, our studies cover the understanding of the shale gas industry potential in Europe, including analysis of the techno-economic and financial conditions. Future studies could be aimed at providing the JRC-IET with a comprehensive overview of the potential impact of exploration and exploitation of unconventional gas and oil in Europe.
Sub-list C — studies regarding conventional hydrocarbon infrastructure:
This sub-list covers services for assessing existing and potential conventional hydrocarbon (gas and oil) infrastructure. The purpose of these potential studies would be to support the JRC-IET in exploring the impact of related infrastructure projects on resolving transmission bottlenecks, and/or competition, market integration, security of supply, sustainability, etc. Furthermore, support may be requested for modelling the physical and/or market structure of existing and/or potential infrastructure networks, which could include the collection of relevant data.
Sub-list D — simulation/modelling for (empirical) studies regarding energy systems:
Future scenarios of the energy system could be analysed using simulation models, based on particular scenarios.
An example regards the electricity system, where the more interconnected system and the integration of renewables are challenging models in terms of size, capabilities (probabilistic models, agent-based models, Monte Carlo simulations, steady state, dynamic analysis, price variation), multiscale approach as well as multiparameter analysis and execution time. The modelling may cover updates or extension of power models and development of future scenarios, as well as development of software for power system simulation.
Another example is the gas system, where modelling activities would aim at developing modelling tools for the quantitative analysis of gas and/or electricity market scenarios in the short-, medium- and long-run. The modelling platform would be based on specialised software which would be used to build models of oil, gas and/or electricity markets, in which the physical technical and the regulatory constraints would need to be integrated with market characteristics.