TIMES-Europe: An Integrated Energy System Model for Analyzing Europe's Energy and Climate Challenges

This paper introduces TIMES-Europe, a novel integrated multi-sectoral energy system optimization model for Europe based on the TIMES generator. We describe its main specifications and assumptions as well as its underlying methodology, and summarize the type of policy questions that it can help answering. TIMES-Europe can be used to analyze policy instruments designed for implementing the EU Green Deal and Fit-for-55 program, and to create strategic energy decarbonization and climate change mitigation insights for Europe against the backdrop of its interactions and relations with neighboring countries. Thanks to its technology richness across all main sectors-including power production, transport, industry and the commercial, agricultural and residential sectors-it allows for performing in-depth studies on the role of a large range of low-carbon options in the energy transition of all European countries, both jointly and individually. Three characteristics render TIMES-Europe particularly valuable: (1) it covers the entire European energy system and its main greenhouse gas emissions, (2) it includes all EU member states individually as well as a large set of countries in the EU's vicinity, and (3) it can be used to generate high-level strategic insights as well as detailed recommendations for both national and EU policies. TIMES-Europe is especially suitable for analyzing system integration, which makes it an ideal tool for assessing the implementation of the energy transition and the establishment of a low-carbon economy. We present several research and scenario examples, and characterize opportunities for future energy and climate policy analysis.