In June 2009, SINTEF Energy Research arranged a kick-off meeting for LinkS – a Knowledge-building Project with User Involvement. The project combines climate models with energy system models and compares them.

Text: Senior Researcg Scientist Bjørn Harald Bakken

Linking Global and Regional Energy Strategies (LinkS) is a multidisciplinary Knowledge-building Project with User Involvement, which combines international climate models with European energy system models and compares the differing practice in policy and control of the energy sector. 

More sustainable energy systems
About twenty participants met at Gløshaugen in Trondheim to initiate the LinkS project on 9 and 10 June 2009. The main objective for the project is to develop a robust analytical framework for decision support both for governments and industrial decision makers as specified in the following project aims:

• Find optimal investment strategies in regional energy systems from a global perspective that utilize regional advantages, considering risk and uncertainty.
• Specify how a given region can contribute to specific emission and climatic targets (e.g. stabilization of atmospheric concentration of CO₂) in terms of technology deployment strategies.
• Suggest policy recommendations and instruments supporting sustainable development of regional energy systems based on regional differences in technology, economy, governance and resources.
• Analyse how projected climate changes will influence the future development of a regional energy system with increasing share of renewables in a 100-year perspective.
• Verify the decision support framework on full-scale case studies in Europe and China.

Five PhDs
This new Knowledge-building Project with User Involvement is headed by SINTEF Energy Research. The project is financed by the Research Council of Norway through the Renergy programme. Hydro Aluminum is the industrial sponsor. The project will last for five years, and will deliver five doctorates. Two of the PhD candidates are from Norway and three are from abroad.

Project partners
In addition to SINTEF, the project has the following partners: the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management and the Department of Electric Power Engineering from NTNU and the Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy from Tsinghua University in Beijing.

In addition Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Maryland, USA, is a subcontractor. Joint Global Change Research Institute / Battelle, USA, will also probably be a subcontractor.

The following attended the kick-off meeting:
Professor Steve Gabriel, Professors Matthias Ruth and Andy Blohm from the University of Maryland, Dr James Edmonds from JGCRI, Ketil Heggestad from Hydro Aluminum, Associate Professor Asgeir Tomasgard and Professor Gerard Doorman from NTNU, Rolf Marstrander, Audun Ruud, Ingeborg Graabak, Michael Belsnes, Gerd Solem, Silke van Dyken, Hans Ivar Skjelbred, Bjørn Grinden and Bjørn H. Bakken from SINTEF Energy Research. Professor Teng Fei from Tsinghua University was unable to attend.

From left: Rolf Marstrander (SINTEF), Ingeborg Graabak (SINTEF), James Edmonds (JGCRI), Bjørn H. Bakken (SINTEF), Gerd Solem (SINTEF), Ketil Heggestad (Hydro Aluminum), Andy Blohm (University of Maryland), Gerard Doorman (NTNU), Steve Gabriel (University of Maryland), Audun Ruud (SINTEF), Asgeir Tomasgard (NTNU) and Matthias Ruth (University of Maryland). Photo: Harald Danielsen