A comprehensive engineering approach to shaping the future energy system

Abstract

The urgency to significantly reduce the impacts of climate change is felt around the globe. By signing the Paris agreement in 2016, 195 governments have agreed on a long-term goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature below 2 °C above preindustrial levels and on aiming to limit the increase to 1.5 °C. To reach these goals, major technological, organizational, and social changes in different sectors and their services are needed. To understand and steer the transition from the current energy system towards a carbon-free energy system, we propose a comprehensive engineering framework that integrates different aspects, such as technical, economic, cyber-physical, social, institutional and political, that are needed in the design of such a complex system. We explain the importance of combining different disciplines to provide comprehensive models and tools in order to support and achieve a sustainable, affordable, reliable and inclusive energy transition.