First "Swiss Energy Modelling Platform" (SEMP) Study

Work Package 3 (2019)

The first ‘Swiss Energy Modelling Platform’ study that has been conducted over the last years, is finally published as Special Issue of five publications in the upcoming Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics. SEMP is conducted and coordinated by the SCCER CREST Simulation Lab. The results of SEMP provide important reference for the ongoing debate on the ES2050. Working with harmonized business-as-usual assumptions, the SEMP models show that current climate policies in Switzerland lead to reductions in energy related emissions by 2050 in the range of 25-45% compared to 2010 levels. These abatement levels are less than the 80% of the target set by the Swiss government. Aiming for emissions of 1.5 and 1.0 tons CO2 per capita, the scenarios show that the carbon tax level needs to increase to 529-652 and 970-1089 CHF/tCO2, respectively, leading to cumulative welfare reductions of 0.15-0.37% and 0.24-0.48% compared to the business-as-usual scenario. Most models find that a cost-effective approach towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions relies on replacing fossil fuels with electricity and thus do not recommend a decrease in electricity use, as envisioned in the ES2050. Also most models find that a uniform carbon tax is the most efficient instrument. In addition to these contributions to the current policy debate, the multi-model comparison facilitated by SEMP also helps to identify common trends and differences across models and to gain more robust insights to what extent the choice of a modeling framework shapes the results of the analysis.

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