Collaborative and selfish mitigation strategies to tackle energy scarcity: The case of the European gas crisis

Jacob Mannhardt; Paolo Gabrielli; Giovanni Sansavini

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106750

Collaborative and selfish mitigation strategies to tackle energy scarcity: The case of the European gas crisis

iScience. 2023 Apr 27;26(5):106750. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106750. eCollection 2023 May 19.

Authors

Jacob Mannhardt¹, Paolo Gabrielli^{1

2}, Giovanni Sansavini¹

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Energy and Process Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.
² Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, USA.

Abstract

Following the disruption of Russian natural gas flows to Europe, we investigate the impact of collaborative and selfish behavior of European countries to tackle energy scarcity and supply electricity, heat, and industrial gas to end users. We study how the operation of the European energy system will need to adapt to the disruption and identify optimal strategies to overcome the unavailability of Russian gas. Those strategies include diversifying gas imports, shifting energy generation to non-gas-based technologies, and reducing energy demands. Findings suggest that: (1) selfish behavior of Central European countries exacerbates the energy scarcity for many Southeastern European countries; (2) proactive collaborative energy savings, together with a mild winter, can fully relieve the stress of the gas shortage; (3) diversification of gas imports leads to bottlenecks in the gas network, especially in Southeastern Europe; and (4) electricity generation is mostly shifted to coal-based power plants, causing higher carbon emissions.

Keywords: Energy policy; Energy resources; Energy systems.