Coupling World and European models: energy trade and energy security in Europe

Energy modelling can provide a knowledge basis for tackling the security of energy supply issue at different geographical levels. This chapter presents an application of the coupling of the global TIMES Integrated Assessment Model and of the Pan European TIMES model through a series of trade links described and characterised in the REACCESS corridor model. The coupling was developed during the EU FP7 REACCESS project and was further improved and updated during a follow-up phase. The application focuses on the analysis of security of supply to Europe via energy corridors. A new methodology for the assessment of energy security, addressing the risk associated to each supply, is presented together with a scenario analysis related to some of the most populated of the EU’s Member States and to the European Union as a whole. The scenario analysis results show a sample of the possible assessments that stakeholders might be willing to rely on to address the effects of communitarian policies and targets: the preformed analysis, for example, unveils that a risk reduction at communitarian level may not univocally be translated into a benefit for individual Member States.