Download Draft Technical Specifications

Invitation to tender - JRC/SVQ/2016/C.6/5007/NC
Study on generation of input to include land-use and biomass for energy
into energy models
Technical Specifications
Index
1
BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE.................................................................................. 2
1.1
1.2
1.3
THE DIRECTORATE AND THE UNIT .........................................................................................2
POLICY BACKGROUND ..............................................................................................................2
RESEARCH CONTEXT..................................................................................................................3
2
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY ....ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
3
EXPECTED RESULTS ........................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
4
APPROACH ..........................................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
5
TASKS DESCRIPTION .......................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
5
DELIVERABLES .................................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
6
CALENDAR OF DELIVERABLES AND RESULTSERROR!
DEFINED.
BOOKMARK
NOT
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COORDINATION AND MEETINGS WITH THE COMMISSION .................. ERROR!
BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
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QUALITY ASSURANCE .....................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
9
DURATION ...........................................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
10
LANGUAGE ..........................................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
11 CONTENT, STRUCTURE AND GRAPHIC REQUIREMENTS OF THE FINAL
DELIVERABLES ...........................................................ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
11.1
11.2
11.3
Content ...................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Structure .................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Graphic requirements ................................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
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BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE
1.1
THE DIRECTORATE AND THE UNIT
The Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transport (ECCET) Unit of the Directorate
"Transport, Energy and Climate" of the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (DG JRC),
analyses, among other issues, the economic aspects of climate change, both mitigation and
adaptation. In particular, it has been developing climate mitigation scenarios both on EU and
global scale.
1.2
POLICY BACKGROUND
The Paris Agreement includes a long-term goal to put the world on track to limit global warming
to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature
increase to 1.5°C. Regarding the agriculture, forestry and other land use sector, the Paris
Agreement spells out that the contribution from land use and forests in reaching the long
term climate mitigation objectives will be critical.
In line with scientific findings reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(IPCC) in the fourth Assessment Report, the EU's objective, in the context of necessary
reductions by developed countries as a group, is to reduce GHG emissions by 80-95% by
2050 compared to 1990. The Commission in its 2050 Low Carbon Economy Roadmap
proposed concrete milestones to ensure the EU is on track to reduce these emissions by at
least 80% domestically by 2050, with milestones of 40% and 60% reductions in 2030 and 2040.
For 2020, the EU had agreed in 2007 on an economy wide and binding target of at least
20% GHG emission reductions, as well as a binding renewables target of 20% and an
indicative target of 20% energy savings. Land use, however, was not included in either of these
initiatives.
The EU has set an ambitious economy-wide domestic target of at least 40% greenhouse gas
emission reduction for 2030. The 2014 European Council conclusions also mandated the
European Commission to put forward policy to include Land Use, Land Use Change and
Forestry (LULUCF) into the EU's 2030 climate and energy framework. The European
Council specifically acknowledged "the multiple objectives of the agriculture and land use
sector, with their lower mitigation potential, and the need to ensure coherence between the
EU's food security and climate change objectives". It invited the Commission "to examine the
best means of encouraging the sustainable intensification of food production, while optimising
the sector's contribution to greenhouse gas mitigation and sequestration, including through
afforestation".
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1.3
RESEARCH CONTEXT
The Economics of Climate Change, Energy and Transport Unit (ECCET) of the Joint Research
Centre (JRC) has accumulated over the years a considerable experience in the conceptual
development, maintenance and exploitation of economic/energy models that can project energy
consumption, air pollutants and GHG emissions, covering in particular detail sectors such as
transport and energy supply on a global and EU scale.
The JRC has contributed with quantitative modelling results for the preparation numerous policy
initiatives, for instance



The Paris Protocol – A blueprint for tackling global climate change beyond 2020,
COM(2015) 81 final/2
Analysis of options to move beyond 20% greenhouse gas emission reductions and
assessing the risk of carbon leakage, COM(2010) 265 final
Limiting Global Climate Change to 2 degrees Celsius The way ahead for 2020 and
beyond, COM(2007) 2
In the context of the outcome of COP21 and the upcoming analysis of 1.5 degree scenarios there is
an increased need to analyse possible long-term solutions and scenarios which potentially involve
a considerable amount of bioenergy.
The increased utilisation of biomass for energy and wood products can lower emissions in other
sectors through energy and material substitution. Enhancing the bio-economy can therefore
contribute positively to climate mitigation. However, the increased use of biomass for the
production of renewable energy and for material substitution shifts the accounting of
emissions from the energy and others sectors to the land use sector, in particular to forest
management as well as expansion of energy plantations potentially competing for land with
carbon rich natural vegetation such as tropical forests. It is therefore of key importance that the
use of biomass is appropriately accounted for in LULUCF. In addition, reaching, or getting close
to, the ambitious 1.5 degree target will accordingly to the scenarios reviewed in the IPCC AR5
report almost certainly require negative emission technologies among which carbon storage
through afforestation.
In order to derive consistent mitigation scenarios, the modelling framework applied needs to be
continuously updated and the capacity to better represent the interrelationship of energy, land use
and agricultural policies has to be further improved.
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AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
This study intends to improve the energy modelling and scenario analyses at the JRC by
considering adequately cross-sectoral effects of bioenergy and land-use. These complex
relationships need to be addressed with specialized quantitative tools and made available for the
use in energy models.
Bioenergy has been shown to be a potentially valuable, and maybe essential, option for long-run
climate management. However, there is significant variation in bioenergy deployment results and
uncertainty about the economic and social implications associated with large-scale deployment.
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The objective of this study is to develop and provide a set of meta-models, reduced form models,
emulators, or look-up tables allowing capturing the behaviour of the LULUCF sector(s) under
different scenario assumptions.
The use and future contribution of biomass for energy uses depends on many factors. The total
availability (supply) and the price are a function of:
 Available land (sustainability criteria, population, development pattern,..)
 Food demand
 Food diet
 Carbon values
 Biodiversity protection
 Etc.
The aim of the project is to provide the necessary information of the available biomass quantities
and the corresponding prices and AFOLU emissions for a whole range of scenario assumptions.
This output of the study will be implemented for the use within the JRC global and EU energy
models.
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EXPECTED RESULTS
The main expected result is the generation of input for the energy models which allow simulating
the reaction of land-use and agricultural sectors in a variety of different energy and climate
scenarios. This input will reproduce the results as given by detailed modelling tools dealing with
land-use, land-use change, agriculture and bioenergy.
The study will contribute to the assessment of global as well as EU policies in the field of energy
and climate policy.
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APPROACH
In order to further improve the modelling to assess quantitatively the interactions between energy and
land-using sectors a specialised tool is necessary. Such tool or model needs to integrate the agricultural,
bioenergy and forestry sectors so as to allowing and analysis on issues concerning land use competition
between the major land-based production sectors.
This tool or models have to be capable of providing insight on issues that are outside the energy sector
but are vital for instance to achieving the required emissions reductions to meet the 2 degree target.
These issues include: the availability and cost of biomass for energy and implications of large-scale
energy demand for other land uses; the potential supply and location of biological carbon sinks; the
emissions reductions required in other sectors (including non-CO2 greenhouse gases from agriculture);
and the possible contribution of dietary or lifestyle changes.
The information should also contain the emissions (CO2 and potentially other GHGs) related to
land-use activities (agriculture, forestry). To this end the reference and historic emissions have to
be defined and documented.
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The methodology applied and the implementation on the side of the energy models will be
checked for robustness. To this end test scenarios will be defined and run in parallel with the
energy model including the "look-up tables" or emulator and with the land-use tool on the other
hand. The tests will also look into dynamic effects and path dependencies.
Regional disaggregation
Disaggregated information on land-use has to be made available on country or regions level. In
order to provide input for the global modelling ideally the regional disaggregation of the POLES
model 67 regions could be matched. For the EU modelling all EU Member States plus
neighbouring and accession countries should be available.
Table 1: JRC-POLES model regional detail
Europe
CIS
America
Africa
Middle East
Asia
Pacific
EU28
Russia
Argentina
Egypt
Iran
China
Australia
Iceland
Ukraine
Brazil
Saudi Arabia
India
Japan
Turkey
Indonesia
Korea
(Rep.)
Norway
Switzerland
Other
Balkans
Other
CIS
Canada
Chile
Algeria
& Libya
Morocco
& Tunisia
Mediterranean
Middle-East
USA
South
Africa
Rest Gulf
Rest Central
America
Rest SubSaharan
Africa
Mexico
Malaysia
Thailand
Vietnam
Rest South
Asia
New
Zealand
Rest
Pacific
Rest SouthEast Asia
Rest South
America
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Figure 1: JRC-POLES model regional detail map
The time horizon
The time horizon for the analyses carried out at the JRC is 2050. For some analysis on climate
mitigation also scenarios are run until 2100. The information to be fed into the energy sector
models therefore should comprise information covering the time horizon of at least 2050. If 2100
cannot be fully covered by the land-use model, indications should be given how to deal with landuse beyond the time horizon of the land-use model.
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TASKS DESCRIPTION
The contractor will perform the following tasks:
Task A. Assessment of viable ways to incorporate information from the land-use model into
energy models.
Duration: 3 months
The aim of this task is to:


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analyse the dimensions and variables that need to be covered as to inform the energy model on
the reaction of the land-use model.
propose, as a result of this analysis, a specific methodology to generate the meta-model or
information to embed land-use, forestry and agriculture related effects into the energy models.
Completion of Task A should be performed following the requirements described in Section 2
(Aims and objectives), 3 (Expected results) and 4 (Approach).
Task B. Generation of meta information of AFOLU/LULUCF and biomass
Duration: 8 months
The aim of this task is to generate the necessary input to simulate the reaction of the land-use and
agriculture sectors to energy and climate policy scenarios using a emulator or look-up tables
(applying the methodology defined under task A).
This information and input should cover the necessary dimensions in terms of relevant variables
and an adequate space of different scenario definitions. The choice will be made in cooperation
with JRC ECCET and based on the analysis carried out under Task A.
Completion of Task B should be done following the requirements described in Section 2 (Aims
and objectives), 3 (Expected results) and 4 (Approach).
Task C. Evaluation of robustness
Duration: 4 months
With a set of meta-information to be included in the energy models tests will be run in order to
evaluate the robustness of the approach. This includes parallel runs with the energy and the landuse model so as to check the proper functioning of the transferred information and the adequate
reproduction of the effects by the reduced form input.
The dimension covered by the checks should include:
 dynamic effects (paths), time dimension,
 regional/spatial heterogeneity,
 reaction to disruptive "shocks" (prices, quantities)
12 DELIVERABLES
The following deliverables are expected from the study:

Deliverable A. Inception report covering proposed methodology
The Contractor should deliver a short report describing the intended work to be carried out
under this study and the methodology to be applied. The final version of the reports should
take into consideration the proposals and comments by the IPTS team.


Deliverable B1. Input data/reduced form to be included in the energy models.
Deliverable B2. Report documenting the input provided.

Deliverable C. Report on robustness
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
Deliverable D. Final report (summary)
The deliverable will briefly summarise the methodology as well as the results of this study.
13 CALENDAR OF DELIVERABLES AND RESULTS
The following table summarises when the tentative time schedule for the different activities and
deliverables:
Month 0
End of month 3
Contract signature
Deliverable A
End of month 12
Deliverables B1 and B2
End of month 16
Deliverable C
End of month 18
Deliverable D
In case the JRC requests changes, the new version of the deliverable should be submitted within a
maximum of one month after the formal request from the Commission.
20 COORDINATION AND MEETINGS WITH THE COMMISSION
The contractor will be required to carry out the service in close co-operation with JRC.
There will be the following one day meetings at JRC premises in Seville or by phone or video
conference:

First meeting, for the validation of Deliverables A, within 3 month from the start of the
contract.

Second meeting, for the validation of Deliverables B1 and B2, within 12 month from the
start of the contract.

The final results and deliverables C and D will be presented. The meeting will take place
within 16 months from the start of the contract.
The contractor and JRC can have also bilateral technical meetings, if required as the project
evolves, by telephone or videoconference..
21 QUALITY ASSURANCE
The work delivered by the contractor must be of such quality that it can be used directly to support
existing research and policy making. Therefore, the contractor should establish robust means to
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assure the validity and comparability of information collected and the quality of its analysis and
reporting.
In particular, the Senior Researcher nominated by the Contractor in the proposal will be in charge
of the scientific quality assurance tasks.
Before final acceptance, all reports will be completed, adapted and corrected by this Senior
Researcher, who will fully take into account the comments, suggestions and additional written
comments provided by the IPTS.
22 DURATION
The contractor shall start working immediately after the signature of the contract.
The execution of the tasks may in any case not start before the contract has been signed.
The service will be delivered over a period of up to 18 months since the date of the last signature
of the contract, including the time for the JRC to comment the interim deliverables and the
contractor to implement the suggested amendments. The time needed for possible comments and
amendments to the final deliverables (Deliverables C and D) is not included.
23 LANGUAGE
The language of all deliverables meetings, presentations, and exchanges will be English.
It is expected that the written text in the deliverables is of high standard scientific language, ideas
are expressed in a clear and logically structured way. The text of all deliverables will be strictly
assessed according to these criteria in the review process.
24 CONTENT, STRUCTURE AND GRAPHIC REQUIREMENTS OF THE
FINAL DELIVERABLES
All studies produced for the European Commission and Executive Agencies shall conform to the
corporate visual identity of the European Commission by applying the graphic rules set out in the
European Commission's Visual Identity Manual, including its logo.
The Commission is committed to making online information as accessible as possible to the
largest possible number of users including those with visual, auditory, cognitive or physical
disabilities, and those not having the latest technologies. The Commission supports the Web
Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 of the W3C.
For full details on Commission policy on accessibility for information providers, see:
http://ec.europa.eu/ipg/standards/accessibility/index_en.htm
Pdf versions of studies destined for online publication should respect W3C guidelines for
accessible pdf documents. See: http://www.w3.org/WAI/
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24.1 CONTENT
Final study report (Deliverable D)
The final study report shall include:
-
an abstract of no more than 200 words and an executive summary of maximum 6 pages,
both in English;
-
the following standard disclaimer:
“The information and views set out in this report are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the official opinion of the Commission. The Commission does not guarantee the accuracy
of the data included in this study. Neither the Commission nor any person acting on the
Commission’s behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information
contained therein.”
-
specific identifiers which shall be incorporated on the cover page provided by the
Contracting Authority.
Publishable executive summary
The publishable executive summary shall be provided in both English and shall include:
-
the following standard disclaimer:
“The information and views set out in this report are those of the author(s) and do not
necessarily reflect the official opinion of the Commission. The Commission does not
guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this study. Neither the Commission nor any
person acting on the Commission’s behalf may be held responsible for the use which may
be made of the information contained therein.”
-
specific identifiers which shall be incorporated on the cover page provided by the
Contracting Authority.
24.2 STRUCTURE
The final study report (Deliverable D) must follow the structure agreed at the first meeting.
24.3 GRAPHIC REQUIREMENTS
For graphic requirements please refer to the template provided in the annex 1. The cover page
shall be filled in by the contractor in accordance with the instructions provided in the template.
For further details you may also contact [email protected].
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