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POLES: Prospective Outlook on Long-term Energy Systems

A globally recognised, comprehensive simulation model for worldwide energy supply, demand and prices.

POLES: Prospective Outlook on Long-term Energy Systems

POLES is used and developed by Enerdata in collaboration with the European Commission’s JRC IPTS and University of Grenoble-CNRS (EDDEN laboratory).

It provides quantitative, scenario-based, empirical and objective analysis of the energy sector for key stakeholders: private companies, governments, international organisations...

POLES input data is updated each year, allowing users to describe full development pathways of the energy sector up to 2050 with worldwide coverage.

model poles listing

Methodology

POLES is a world energy-economy partial equilibrium simulation model of the energy sector until 2050, with complete modelling from upstream production to final user demand and greenhouse gas emissions.

The simulation process uses year-by-year dynamic recursive modelling with endogenous international energy prices and lagged adjustments of supply and demand by world region.

Well-adapted to forecast the effects of different energy-related issues (energy policies, promotion of renewables and energy efficiency, energy security issues, etc.) as well as climate-related issues (GHG emissions limitations, effort sharing between countries), POLES captures all impacts of the energy system thanks to endogenous fuel prices and national forecasts coherent within the global environment.

Key Features

  • Long-term (2050) simulation of world energy scenarios / projections and international energy markets
  • World energy supply scenarios by main producing country / region with consideration of reserve development and resource constraints (88 producing countries / regions)
  • Outlook for energy prices at international, national and sectoral levels
  • Disaggregation into 15 energy demand sectors with over 40 technologies (power generation, buildings, transport)
  • EU Member States: Estimates of ETS and Non-ETS splits
  • Detailed national / regional energy balances and emissions, integrating primary production, primary demand, transformation & power, losses and final energy demand. 54 consuming countries + 12 regions; including all 28 EU Member States and EU surroundings (Norway, Iceland, Switzerland, Turkey)
  • Full power generation system (and feedback effect on other energies): 30 explicit technologies, load curve simulation with typical days, annual capacity planning and dispatch based on LCOE, centralised and decentralised, potentials associated to renewables, CCS
  • Transformation: explicit technologies for liquids from gas, liquids from coal, biofuels, hydrogen and production
  • Impacts of energy prices and tax policies on regional energy systems. National greenhouse gas emissions and abatement strategies
  • Energy trade: oil (global pool), gas (bilateral trade from 41 exporters to 14 importing markets), coal (bilateral trade from 26 exporters to 15 importing markets), import needs for solid biomass, liquid biofuels, uranium and electricity
  • Costs of national and international GHG abatement scenarios with different regional targets / endowments and flexibility systems
  • CO2 emission marginal abatement cost curves and emissions trading system analysis by region and / or sector, under different market configurations and trading rules
  • Technology diffusion under conditions of sectoral demand and inter-technology competition based on relative costs and merit orders
  • Endogenous developments in energy technologies, with impacts of public and private investment in R&D and cumulative experience with “learning by doing”

References

  • DECC (UK): EU 2030 Energy scenarios, dynamic simulation of ETS price and permit trading for all participating sectors across EU Member States.
  • DG Environment (European Commission): Macroeconomic impacts of shale gas extraction in the EU.
  • French Ministry of Energy & Sustainable Development (France): Reference scenarios on long-term forecasts of energy-climate-air for France with bi-annual updates. Use of the MedPro and POLES models for energy and emissions forecasting: French prospective energy, climate, air scenarios to 2035.
  • The World and European Energy and Environment Transition Outlook: Weto-T 2012 for the European Commission.