Gas Decarbonisation Pathways 2020–2050: Gas for Climate

The European Union aims to fully decarbonise the EU economy, which requires a complete overhaul of the energy system and its infrastructure by 2050. The European Commission announced the European Green Deal in December 2019, which includes a wide variety of plans to step up climate mitigation policies. Raising the ambitions of EU climate policy will require significant investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, new low carbon technologies, and grid infrastructure. It will also necessitate the close integration of the electricity and gas sectors and their respective infrastructures. A decarbonised Europe will be based on an interplay between the production of renewable electricity and the conversion of green electrons into green molecules to transport, store, and supply all sectors with renewable energy at the lowest possible costs. Becau e the necessary investments are made for a period of 20–60 years, it is important to understand what types of investments are needed at what scale and by when. This study seeks to shed light on the future design of a fully integrated energy system and formulates recommendations for the emerging EU Green Deal. These recommendations could help accelerate business cases and promote a stable framework to unlock the large investments required to fully decarbonise the EU economy at the lowest societal costs. This study explores EU decarbonisation pathways for gas and gas infrastructure between 2020 and 2050. Large investments and difficult decisions are required to fully decarbonise the energy system at the lowest societal costs, yet there is ample opportunity to create new employment and to make Europe the global leader in low carbon technologies. The present study is an update to the 2019 study for the Gas for Climate consortium done by Navigant, now called Guidehouse.6 That study, called, Gas for Climate. The optimal role for gas in a net-zero emissions energy system, explored the role and value for renewable and low carbon gases in a net-zero EU energy system in 2050. It analysed the potential of biomethane and hydrogen produced in the EU, and the energy system cost benefits of using them through existing gas infrastructure to achieve a net-zero emissions EU energy system. The study found that there is a large opportunity to scale-up renewable gas production in the EU and concluded that full  decarbonisation with a role for renewable gas offers significant societal cost benefits. The energy system costs of an Optimised Gas scenario were compared to those of a Minimal Gas scenario. The Optimal Gas scenario offered over €200 billion in cost savings per year by 2050.  You can download the whole report by clicking this link