The Research projects SAVE-E and COMETS have several things in common: Both projects are led by DTU Management Engineering, they will both be of great importance to Denmark's goal of becoming non-dependent of fossil fuels, and they are both supported by Innovation Fund Denmark with more than 10 million DKK.
SAVE-E
One of the projects, SAVE-E, examines what makes Danish households and businesses invest in energy saving solutions. The results can be used to organize economic and other measures in order to stimulate investments that are both environmentally and financially sound. Innovation Fund Denmark invests DKK. 17 million in the project.
SAVE-E will analyze the decision-making behavior, which controls households and firms' choice of energy savings. Based on the analysis, the project will examine how economic instruments and other regulation instruments can be organized to support a development where energy efficient solutions can help phase out dependency on fossil fuels.
It is our goal to develop models that can function as tools to organize energy policy in Denmark that promotes the willingness and ability to invest in more energy-saving solutions. Only by adapting the regulation to the behavior that drives investment in energy saving, we can markedly promote the use of energy-efficient solutions in Denmark. "Explains project manager from the Department of Management Engineering, Henrik Klinge Jacobsen.
COMETS
The other project, COMETs, aims at developing new analytical tools that can show the way towards a transport without fossil fuels. Innovation Fund Denmark invests 14 million DKK. in the development of an analytical model that integrates transport and energy sectors.
Today, transport accounts for 35 % of the Danish CO2 emissions. If the goal of a Danish society without the use of fossil fuels is to be achieved by 2050, cars and other means of transportation must either be replaced or converted over the next 25 years.
To do this, it must be clear which technologies to focus on. Because there are different ways to go, there is a need for tools that can show what different actions cost and how feasible they are.
COMETS will develop such a tool, thus making it transparent which parts of the energy sector and which parts of the transport sector that, through interaction, can provide the best holistic traffic and environment solutions.
“For example the project gives decision makers the opportunity to see the electric- and biofuel vehicles both as an active part of the total traffic solution, and as a part of the energy system's storage capacity. At the same time, the decisions on the use of wind power, biomass, etc. are analyzed in relation to the needs of the transport sector”, says Kenneth Bernard Karlsson, Group Leader DTU Management Engineering ESY.