Project objectives

• An informed, independent assessment of the sector and its medium and longer term prospects -- in order to challenge and enrich the sponsors own ongoing work in this area.
• As a basis for planning and policy discussions, providing a well documented view of several of the energy "futures" which are among the most likely to occur in the decades immediately ahead.
• By virtue of its comprehensive coverage and systematic approach, reducing uncertainty to the extent possible by exposing to the analysis a wide range of structural factors of possible significance (including factors often not brought into such studies).
• Putting firm quantities on these prospective developments as a basis for these considerations, together with a well documented methodological "trail" to permit cross-checking, alternative hypotheses, other data, etc.
• Providing a well identified methodology for identifying, measuring, and evaluating the impact on the sector of technical and institutional change, which could eventually be further developed or adapted to the individual subscriber's particular planning needs.
• Making this information available to subscribers in a way that can help them to look at and weigh alternative strategies for dealing with, in particular, the twin (and traditionally conflicting) issues of energy efficiency and the need to preserve our ecological heritage.
• Presenting this information in a form which allows for vivid comparisons, provokes useful questions and debate, and can serve as a framework for organizing yet further research and policy analysis programs.
• As an outside check on current longer range plans and proposals.
• Stimulating creative thinking in in-house policy and "futures" groups through the supply of "generative ideas", checklists of issues and novel analytical techniques;

Our report was intended to raise at least as many questions as it answers. That is, we believe, entirely appropriate at this stage of the research and policy defining process. Fortunately, the modeling framework provides a means for addressing a certain number of these in a cost and time effective manner. In addition to the printed report, the subscriber may in due course wish to consider further extensions or uses of the methodology in general and/or the models and databases more particularly.

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  Methodology

As in most of our projects, the process is not only critical but also heavily interactive. The research effort behind the project was financed by an ad hoc international subscriber group consisting of several international energy suppliers, a national gas monopoly, an international agency with policy responsibility in the energy field, and the Commission for the European Community. The means for communicating the views and findings of this program to the sponsors were basically five:

• A process of interim communications and report generation that has proceeded in iterations over the three years of the project. This process has included the submittal and discussion of both the initial research plan and then subsequently in 1989 the revised work plan, a number of interim working papers and an earlier draft of the full report to each sponsor for critical appraisal, comment, and guidelines for finalization.
• A cycle of roundtables and review meetings with most of the sponsors at several stages over the project. These sessions provided opportunities for critical reviews of draft materials and working papers, direct communication by the sponsor of their particular interests and requirements, and debriefing by the project team of views, findings and conclusions other than those which appear in the written papers.
• The final report, prepared for the sponsor group as a whole. This document is intended as the main reference document and a full statement of the program, its intentions and its detailed findings. With more than one hundred tables and charts covering a considerable variety of sub-sectors and topics, and further supported by a number of technical references and working papers, it cannot be considered a fast read and is not intended as such.
• A number of technical working papers have been made available in support of this report to the sponsors, including in particular more detailed statements of the methodology and additional technical background on the systems analysis and modeling component. A listing of these supporting documents will be found in the appendix to the report.
• An Executive Summary has been prepared for the busy reader who wishes to inform himself about the main lines of the project and its findings and recommendations, but who does not have the time or need to confront the full report and associated database and supporting working materials and reference documents. The Summary is intended both as a comprehensive introduction to the full report and its contents, and as a document which can be circulated widely within the sponsoring group to provide a readable synopsis of the project's main findings and conclusions. It is keyed to the full report for easy reference purposes. Individual summaries have been prepared for each sponsor.

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  Choosing Europe's Energy Future - Reports

• Click here for Executive Summary (PDF, 108 ko.)
  
  
• Click here for Full European Commission report (PDF, 900 ko.)
  

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