Below you can find the research projects undertaken by CSEI.
Current Projects
- Coordinator: University College Dublin, Lisa Ryan
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Jens Weibezahn, Manuel Llorca
- Funding body: European Commission – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Period: September 2024 – August 2028
The project CoDeF pursues the primary objective of training innovative and expert doctoral researchers with a combination of strong research skills and key transferable competencies to face the challenges presented by an emerging aspect of the clean energy transition, consumer energy flexibility. The network integrates the variety of disciplines needed to study consumer energy flexibility and will train participants in research and transferable skills to progress and deliver state of the art research in their fields. Consumers and citizens will play an important role in the transition to net zero carbon energy through flexible energy use and matching demand to available renewable energy supply, thus reducing the need for fossil fuel generation and consumer energy bills. Nonetheless, technical, economic, and societal challenges currently hinder consumer participation in energy markets. The scientific research focuses on three objectives related to the increased participation of consumers in the provision of demand flexibility:
- Incentives and behaviour: how to incentivise consumer flexibility through behavioural change, demand response interventions, and markets.
- Enabling frameworks: how to facilitate flexible consumer demand through enablers, such as control algorithms and smart grids, smart devices in the home, and institutional frameworks.
- Impact assessment: evaluating the impact of consumer energy flexibility on emissions, the energy system and society.
Each doctoral candidate will carry out specialised research related to one of the objectives, in cooperation with their supervisors and interlinked with other researchers and associated partners of the consortium. Collectively, the doctoral network delivers multidisciplinary, integrated, innovative research outcomes for energy policy and society and a cohort of expert researchers equipped to realise the clean energy transition.
- Coordinator: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Andreas Sumper
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Jens Weibezahn
- Funding body: European Commission – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Period: September 2024 – August 2028
The IDEAL4GREEN project addresses the urgent challenges of climate change and the global shift towards sustainable energy systems. It focuses on developing and integrating microgrids, which are crucial in managing the variability of renewable resources and achieving decarbonisation targets. The project aligns with the EC’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050 by empowering energy communities and optimising local supply and demand. The project proposes a comprehensive doctoral training network aimed at developing skilled engineers with interdisciplinary and inter-sectoral expertise. This network diverges from conventional university-based research, maintaining strong industry links and emphasising practical implementation. IDEAL4GREEN consists of 8 beneficiaries and 11 partner organisations, recruiting 15 doctoral candidates to undertake research on microgrids’ planning, design, operation, control, and impact assessment. The research encompasses innovative frameworks and methodologies for integrating microgrids and transforming traditional grids into sustainable energy systems. This includes developing advanced control algorithms, cybersecurity, improving mechanisms for microgrid islanding and reconnection, and enhancing the resilience and reliability of interconnected microgrid systems. The project also explores the planning, policy, and economic feasibility of interconnected grids and microgrids. It emphasises creating complete and integrated microgrid design frameworks, utilising integrated energy system modelling, and investigating regulatory policies. In terms of training, the DCs will engage in a mix of academic and industrial experiences, including secondments and networking meetings, ensuring their exposure to both theoretical knowledge and practical skills. The training program covers various aspects, such as advanced technical skills, collaborative communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and adaptability.
- Coordinator: Technical University of Denmark, Dogan Keles
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Alexandra Lüth
- Funding body: Danmarks Innovationsfond – Innomission 2: Green Fuels in Transport and Industry (MissionGreenFuels)
- Period: January 2024 – December 2025
The overall objective of this project is to assess the market potential for hydrogen and green fuels and their implications for the European electricity market. As such, it will focus on both, the short-term operations of PtX assets on different electricity markets (spot and balancing power), as well as the long-term market design, and regulation of green hydrogen/fuels and biofuels to support the deployment of PtX serving the industrial and transportation demands throughout Europe.
The project consists of three work packages that cover the analysis of markets for hydrogen and green fuels, as well as the interaction of PtX with electricity and energy markets along three dimensions: time (real-time/control, short-term, and long-term), space (local, national, and European), and products (electricity, hydrogen, and green fuels).
The project develops a framework for technology operators and policymakers in Demark to enable the plans of the Danish PtX strategy and the green fuel mission. It aims at creating input for economically viable supply and use of green fuels and will investigate the roles and operation of assets in respective markets. Finally, the project provides business model insights to ensure profitable use in Denmark and beyond.
The market potential assessment for hydrogen and green fuels and their implications for electricity markets can be extended across Europe and beyond. The developed long-term planning models and short-term PtX operational strategies can be applied globally in market-based power and energy systems. Uptake by the industry partners and/or subsequent research projects can manage the local needs, allowing the project results to be applied globally. In addition to the industry partners in the project, the wider Danish industry, such as Ørsted, CIP, and Vestas, with whom the academic institutions work, can help in internationalising the project results. The results will be presented in international organisations and networks in which the project partners lead or participate, such as EERA JP Wind, EERA JP Energy Systems Integration, and IEA Wind Task 25 on energy systems.
- Coordinator: Copenhagen Business School
- Co-coordinator: Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Anne Neumann
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Johannes Giehl, Jens Weibezahn
- Funding body: Nordic Energy Research – Nordic Hydrogen Valleys as Energy Hubs
- Period: September 2023 – August 2026
The emerging hydrogen sector and aspirations of a hydrogen economy have led to a vast number of publicly funded projects to develop technology assets and business models on national levels. The lessons learned, however, would benefit from combined efforts on regional and global levels: A joint and collaborative approach helps to efficiently exploit regional potentials, match expertise, and create synergies. In this project, the partners from research and industry from Denmark, Finland, and Norway develop a joint pathway for a hydrogen value chain for 2030, 2040, and 2050 in the Nordics with a particular focus on the role of the maritime sector.
The project delivers insights into the characteristics of optimal production of hydrogen, ammonia, and other electrofuels, including cost and cost structures for production, storage, and transportation. It will also provide knowledge about demand side characteristics, such as volumes, locational distribution, and emissions. Developing these deliverables involves the estimation of global hydrogen and hydrogen derivative trades and costs as well as the possible contributions from the Nordics. Based on this estimated demand in and supply of the Nordics, the development of an energy system model allows for determining infrastructure needs including transport and storage at aggregated regional levels and more detailed locations. To create knowledge on specific operational details and requirements, energy hub modelling helps to obtain specifics on port operations, energy hub structure, and logistics needs. As an overarching exercise, the project assesses markets and regulatory challenges including technological, safety, and socio-economic barriers to a hydrogen economy.
The project uses the example of Rønne Havn in Denmark, a mobile Power-to-X facility developed by H2Carrier in Norway, and St1 in Norway and Finland to demonstrate possible value chain components in highly detailed resolution. This allows concluding milestones for pathways towards a joint Nordic effort on developing a hydrogen valley.
- Coordinator: University of Vienna, Austria
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Manuel Llorca
- Funding body: European Commission – Horizon Europe Innovation Action
- Period: January 2023 – December 2025
The Clean Energy Package establishes the rights to access energy data to customers and share it with eligible parties of their choice. This enables new energy data-based services within and beyond the energy sector. The main barrier for such solutions is the lack of large-scale and uniform procedures in the EU. Actors are tied to national practices, which limits their interoperability and growth perspective. These constraints have an industrial, economic and social dimension on a European level and beyond.
As a solution, EDDIE creates a de-centralised, distributed, open-source Data Space, aligned with the work of the EU Smart Grids Task Force on the Implementing Acts on Interoperability and other European activities. This European Distributed Data Infrastructure for Energy (EDDIE) lowers data integration costs drastically because the resulting EDDIE Framework lets energy service companies work and compete in a common European market. In addition, an Administrative Interface for In-house Data Access (AIIDA) ensures the customer consent-based secure and reliable access to valuable real-time data.
- Coordinator: Copenhagen Business School
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Manuel Llorca
- Funding body: Danmarks Innovationsfond – Innomission 1: Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (INNO-CCUS)
- Period: January 2023 – December 2025
The aim of this project is to study the factors deciding public acceptance and legitimacy in the placement of far-shore, near-shore, and on-shore CCUS and related infrastructure in Denmark. This analysis is done through surveys, focus group interviews, data collection, and the estimation of acceptance and preference relations for diverse types of CCUS technologies. This will contribute to a better understanding of the type of measures and processes that must be adopted, in order to secure acceptance of carbon storage, both in terms of choosing the right location, communicating effectively about risks and benefits, and by outlining optimal processes for citizen involvement to ensure legitimacy.
- Coordinator: Copenhagen Business School
- Co-coordinator: Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Anne Neumann
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Alexandra Lüth, Jens Weibezahn
- Funding body: Nordic Energy Research – Nordic or Nordic-Baltic PhD and researcher mobility
- Period: January 2022 – December 2024
The NordNET project focuses on the energy transition, transport modeling, energy market modeling, and the coupling thereof. It brings together world-class education and research groups from higher education institutions from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden working on these topics. The added value from the network is the interaction of topic experts leading to the creation of more knowledge valuable to all societies. The project team brings together interdisciplinary experience from energy sector modeling, energy system modeling, transport modeling, electrical engineering, and economics. The overarching common ground is the goal to support efficient implementation of an energy system change given the need for a transition in light of the climate crisis we are currently facing.
- Coordinator: Copenhagen Business School
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Alexandra Lüth, Jens Weibezahn
- Funding body: Copenhagen Business School – Strategic Initiatives
- Period: January 2022 – December 2024
ENERforsk is a network to connect energy researchers in Denmark (and neighboring countries). ENERforsk is supported by Copenhagen School of Energy Infrastructure, DTU Management – Energy Economics and System Analysis, and DTU Wind – Society, Market, and Policy. ENERforsk receives funding from Copenhagen Business School.
Past Projects
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Jens Weibezahn
- Funding body: European Commission – Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Period: January 2022 – December 2023
The European Commission, with its “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package, calls for stronger participation of residential electricity consumers—individually or through communities—in the energy value chain, that is, production and sharing as well as flexible and responsive demand. While the associated pilot projects show promising results for the technical and economic feasibility of energy communities in Europe, the impact of widespread implementation remains unclear and they are still in an early stage, especially in regard to regulatory and economic frameworks. Consequently, there is a mismatch between developed market designs and their feasibility in the current regulatory framework. Thus, the research project will seek to investigate the advantages of a decentralized energy transformation from a system perspective, market designs for a 100% renewable energy transformation, and business models for energy communities.
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Christine Brandstätt
- Funding body: European Commission – Directorate-General for Energy
- Period: January 2022 – June 2023
In the project “A Methodology for Implementing Smart and Efficient Energy System Integration” (STEERS) CSEI assessed the methodology of the ten-year network development planning (TYNDP) against the state of knowledge on sector integration and system modelling. The work was funded by a research grant from the European Commission. The TYNDP process is evolving continuously in order to support the European decarbonization targets and to align with the latest changes in European legislation. The project contributed to the evolution of a coherent TYNDP methodology that supports delivering a smart and efficient integrated energy system, incorporates energy system integration, and energy efficiency throughout. In our own methodology, we proposed incremental and pragmatic changes to achieve this, and assessed them for their relevance and feasibility. We furthermore provide a list of examples of best practices and provide a detailed assessment of the transparency of the data used in the TYNDP process in 2022.
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Tooraj Jamasb
- Funding body: European Commission – Directorate-General for Energy
- Period: December 2020 – April 2021
CSEI was commissioned by the European Commission to assess the TYNDP 2020 scenarios with a particular focus on the identification of methodological aspects and provide recommendations to improve these on the basis of independent and academic energy economics research.
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Alexandra Lüth
- Funding body: PhD Project
- Period: October 2019 – September 2022
Offshore energy hubs are discussed as key milestone in the energy transition in the Nordic and Baltic region and for Western and Central Europe. The idea involves the construction of production and conversion hubs far out at sea, where the wind energy potential is high. This thesis touches upon three interdisciplinary aspects of this concept. Summarized in three chapters, it provides insights into the risks and opportunities, system configuration and market design of offshore energy hubs.
- Principal investigator at CSEI: Chenyan Lyu
- Funding body: PhD Project
- Period: October 2019 – September 2022
This PhD thesis explores the carbon market integration and risk sharing mechanism across markets, from developing carbon pilot markets in China, to global leading carbon markets in EU, US, and New Zealand. The last chapter of the thesis explores spillovers across highly geographically integrated Nordic electricity markets, as well as the impact of carbon price shocks on the volatility spillovers in Nordic electricity markets.