ESA² - Energy System Analysis Agency

Short description:
ESA² (Energy System Analysis Agency) was a lighthouse innovation project of KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Communities) InnoEnergy under the leadership of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) and was additionally funded by the State of Baden-Württemberg. It ran from October 2010 until December 2013. Energy system models were combined within ESA² to analyse the European energy system within a collaboration of different research institutes from five European countries (Sweden Poland, Belgium, France and Germany). The models were coupled and/or related to each other with interfaces and common input data (e.g. regarding framework parameters) through a data warehouse. A company was spun off from the project ESA². Since spring 2014, ESA² is an independent company and university/research spin-off providing services in the field of energy system analyses. For public and private clients it offers qualified decision support related to energy and environmental policy. ESA2 is the first spin-off from an innovation project of the KIC InnoEnergy Germany.

Contribution of the Chair of Energy Economics:
The Chair of Energy Economics analyses the European Electricity Market For this purpose we mainly use the bottom-up European Electricity market model ELTRAMOD. The focus of our previous researches was the trade-off between storage and network expansions. We analysed the necessity of additional storage and net transfer capacities (NTC) in Europe until 2050 based on various scenarios.

Project director:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology – KIT, Institute for Industrial Production (IIP)

Project term:
10/2010 – 11/2013
07/2014 (Founding of the operating agency ESA²)

Type of financing:
KIC InnoEnergy, European Institute of Innovation & Technology, Free State of Baden-
Württemberg