Energy transition of the Sardinia region through energy system modelling with the Calliope framework

In order to mitigate the climate change the target of the Europe is to achieve the carbon neutrality by 2050, reaching the net carbon emissions equal to zero. This requires an increase in the use of renewable energy reducing power plants with fossil sources. Therefore European countries have committed the phase-down project of coal, that involves a reduction of coal-fired plants. The Italian country planned in its energy strategy the complete phase-out of coal to 2025. In particular, in the Italian region Sardinia the installed capacity of coal power plants is about 1 GW and after the phase-out its energy system will be significantly modified. Therefore the study of the energy system of this region is urgent and energy models could be important tools for this purpose. In this work an energy model of the region Sardinia is built using the open framework Calliope, based on Python language. This framework allows to optimize energy systems with an objective function setting constraints. In this case it is built the energy model of the region and tested for its validation in the dispatching mode, verifying energy fluxes between nodes under the objective function of minimize the cost of the system. After the model is built some possible future scenarios are designed considering the target for the region about capacity installed, planned modifications in the transmission lines and in the demand that will involve the Sardinia. These scenarios are constructed trying to reduce the cost of the system and find possible improvements that can be done starting from these scenarios.