Decarbonising the Swedish transport sector with electricity or biofuels

Sweden has set long-term energy policy targets which aim at eliminating net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 [1]. Since the production of power and district heating in Sweden is already close to be carbon neutral, a further reduction of GHG emissions have to be seeked in other sectors, for example the transport sector. By 2011, approximately 90% of the total fuel consumption in the transport sector stems from fossil fuels, accounting for around 45% of the GHG emissions in Sweden [1]. Therefore, the Swedish transport sector will have to face a major transformation in the next future, if the ambitious targets of a carbon neutral transport system by 2050 and of being independent from fossil fuels in the vehicle fleet by 2030 have to be achieved [1]. To meet the energy
policy targets, radical restructuring of the fuel use and vehicle stock in the transport sector is required. In this context, this paper develops two alternative scenarios for the transport sector by 2050 – an Electric Vehicles Scenario (EVS) which include a high percentage of electric vehicles and a BIOfuel Scenario (BIOS) with a high percentage of biofuels. The scenario results are compared to the Carbon Neutral Scenario (CNS), adopted from the Nordic Energy Technology Perspective (NETP) 2013 [2]. The alternative scenarios for the transport sector are developed by means of an energy system model which includes the power, heat and transport sectors, taking into account possible synergies among the sectors. The energy system model computes the socio-economic value of the total annual system cost which then allows for a comparative analysis between the investigated scenarios.