Pieter Vingerhoets

EnergyVille/VITO Expands the PATHS2050 Platform with New Scenarios 

In the autumn of 2022, VITO/EnergyVille unveiled PATHS 2050 | The Power of Perspective – a platform where more than 200 researchers collaborated to chart data-driven roadmaps and potential routes for reaching a climate-neutral Belgium by 2050, at the lowest societal cost. The groundbreaking platform is deeply entrenched in the results generated by the EPOC 2030-2050 project – a five-year project that, also led by VITO/EnergyVille, brought together researchers from no less than 13 Belgian research institutions, and ended successfully in June 2023.

On May 3, VITO/EnergyVille hosted a webinar on dunkelflaute in collaboration with the RMI, as part of the completion of the EPOC project. The webinar explained the concept of dunkelflaute and explored ways to address periods of low solar and wind. In it, Francois Duchene (RMI) provided an analysis from a climate perspective and Partha Das (VITO/EnergyVille) discussed the impact of dunkelflaute on the backup needs for molecules. Since the impact of dunkelflaute affects all of us, in this article we walk you through the webinar’s key takeaways.

Which scenarios are conceivable, feasible and affordable?