Alessandro Balbo

The energy transition demands planning approaches that reflect local geographic, demographic, and infrastructural constraints, particularly in sparsely populated regions where national-scale models obscure spatially heterogeneous challenges. This study applies a transparent, open-source optimization framework to Northern Norway (NO4), an Arctic bidding zone characterized by dispersed settlements, constrained transmission corridors, and pronounced seasonality in demand and renewable resources. Rather than generating multiple long-term scenarios, the model functions as a diagnostic tool to examine how spatial granularity, high temporal resolution (hourly profiles across four seasons), and data-construction choices shape transition pathways.Results reveal four critical insights. First, regional modeling exposes a substantially stronger growth in electricity demand than national projections suggest, driven by electrification and persistent export dynamics. Second, offshore wind emerges as structurally necessary to meet this demand under realistic hydropower expansion constraints, a finding contingent on capacity factor assumptions requiring sensitivity analysis. Third, temporal mismatch between variable renewable generation and demand materially affects storage needs and trade flows, even in a hydropower-dominated system. Fourth, and most significant, the industrial sector's decarbonization pathway cannot be endogenously determined due to absence of disaggregated regional data; instead, emissions reductions are imposed exogenously, revealing data scarcity, not modeling capability, as the primary bottleneck for regional planning.The study demonstrates that transparent regional models do not merely refine national assessments but expose locally binding constraints, infrastructure trade-offs, and critical data gaps that aggregated models inherently smooth over. For peripheral Arctic regions, such diagnostics are essential to translate climate targets into spatially grounded energy strategies.

A submarine, hybrid cable for the simultaneous transfer of green electricity and Liquid Hydrogen ($\text{LH}_{2}$) in a 30 km-long pipeline from an offshore renewable power plant, in the Adriatic Sea is presented here. The superconducting (SC) cable is designed with $\text{MgB}_{2}$ strands to carry the transport current with a significant margin. The SC strands are twisted around a bundle of normal conducting strands with the function of protecting against overcurrents and ensuring at the same time flexibility of the cable. The SC cable, covered by multiple layers of cold dielectric, is inserted into a corrugated pipe, constituting the inner part of a cryostat where $\text{LH}_{2}$ flows. $\text{LH}_{2}$ has the dual function of cryogen and energy carrier. The outer part of the cryostat is designed to limit the heat load to less than 2 W/m, and to withstand the pressure in operation due to the submarine installation at a maximum depth of ∼ 50 m.

This chapter highlights the significance of open-source energy system optimization models in enhancing the transparency and accessibility of energy system studies for policymakers. It provides a detailed example of the creation of a robust modeling framework. This includes guidance on selecting appropriate inputs, interpreting results, and connecting them to policy-relevant objectives such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDGs 6 (water), 7 (energy), 8 (work and economic growth), 9 (industry), 13 (climate) and 15 (land). The focus is on the energy system optimization model TEMOA-Italy, a case study for Italy developed within the open-source framework TEMOA. The presented results explore the impact of possible future scenarios and energy policies on the power sector’s sustainability, showing that low emissions scenarios perform better than a base scenario concerning environmental aspects, but worse in terms of land use and social aspects like the quality of labor. Import dependence is also affected by the renewables’ penetration, due to the criticality of renewable technologies imports. The exclusion of carbon capture from the set of available new technologies improves geopolitical stability and reduces volume shortage risk.

The design of a single-pole MgB ₂ superconducting hydrogen-cooled cable for DC current transmission at low voltage (10 kV) is presented here. The cable consists of a former made of MgB ₂ superconducting wires, a dielectric layer and an annular region that allows for the passage of hydrogen at inlet pressures above the critical one. The cable is contained within a corrugated cryostat, insulated from the external environment. The use of MgB ₂ as a superconducting material allows for the operation of the cable in the range 15-27 K, which reduces the cooling requirements and increases the efficiency of the system. The hydrogen-cooled annular region, acting as a pipeline for the cryogen transport, allows at the same time the efficient cooling of the cable, while the corrugated cryostat provides additional insulation and structural support, together with a relief volume in the case of an accident. The results of this study, mainly performed with a simplified model, benchmarked against the OPENSC2 software, show that the cable is able to support DC current transmission at 10 kV, with maximum cable lengths of several tens of km for inner diameters of the cryostat > 120 mm, supporting a H ₂ mass flow rate > 1 kg/s. Overall, this study demonstrates the feasibility of combining the DC current transmission at low-medium voltage by MgB ₂ to the transport of liquid hydrogen, providing at the same time instantaneous storage of chemical power.