Resources, capacities and corridors for energy imports to Europe

Two main activities of the EC FP7 Risk of Energy Availability: Common Corridors for Europe Supply Security (REACCESS) project applied a systematic approach to collect the main characteristics of energy supply corridors starting from mining activities in exporting regions up to the import infrastructures and capacities of EU27+countries. The aim of the present paper is to summarise identified information on import potentials and the possible corridors for the EU27+energy supply of the future. This information is used as new starting point for the energy system modelling in the REACCESS project.

Detailed information on existing, planned or potential developments derived from literature reviews and expert surveys, as well as from our own calculations, was compiled in a consistent database. By using suitable geographic information system (GIS) tools, all the identified energy supply routes were represented graphically and analysed with reference to their spatial characteristics.

The information collected was used to generate a comprehensive database of resources, production capacities and import routes. Together with further detailed information on technological and economic parameters (not shown in this paper), this database provides new complete and consistent input for the modelling of import corridors and associated risks regarding the energy systems in Europe.

The originality of the paper is the synthesis of a huge volume of information provided in the literature and own additional calculations in a consistent way. The resulting database provides the framework for the integration of security of supply aspects into energy scenario modelling, which is an important modelling challenge and one of the main tasks of REACCESS. The study considers oil, gas, coal and nuclear fuel as well as renewable imports of solar electricity and biomass, and also hydrogen as a possible new energy carrier.