Meet the Energy Leader: Peter Lund

The TU Delft Energy Initiative invites you kindly to the online lecture:

“Early experiences from deep decarbonization pathways in the Nordics”

By Peter Lund, professor in advanced energy systems, Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland

Date: Friday 27 November 2020

• Click here to download the presentation
• Click here to watch back the recording

The Paris Climate Accord has encouraged many nations and blocks to issue plans for reaching carbon neutrality around the middle of this century, notably the European Union, China, and Japan. The Nordic region is in the forefront of the clean energy transition and may reach a carbon-free electricity system already during the 2020s. Finland with relatively high per capita GHG emissions is one of the first countries world-wide which has politically committed to reach net-zero emissions already by 2035 – this will include a total coal ban and halving the oil use in the next ten years. Early experiences from deep decarbonization in the north highlight a range of important technoeconomic and socio-technical issues, e.g. a need for more bottom-up policies and citizen involvement and stronger public acceptance to avoid costly solutions. The Nordic experiences stress the importance of coherent frameworks and policies in the region, while building local solutions. A good example is the common Nordic electricity exchange, which provides a strong backbone for long-reaching CO2-free electrification in several sectors in the region. While the Finnish experiences already show that when approaching the carbon-neutral limit, finding substituting fuels, strengthening carbon sinks, embedding low carbon technology pathways into sectors (e.g. industries), and non-energy sector targets will grow in importance at the same time as the energy system is experiencing profound changes. These factors would become even more important when moving to the final stage in deep decarbonization, i.e. zero-emissions and negative net emissions, which could require more disruptive technologies than the carbon-neutrality target which could still rely on the existing technology base and incremental innovations mainly.

Dr. Peter D. Lund is a professor in advanced energy systems at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland. He has worked in energy and science for more than 40 years across disciplines and bridging different sectors. Dr. Lund is active in senior roles on energy and science-to-policy advising internationally. He has chaired the Advisory Group of Energy of the European Commission and the Energy Panel of the European Academies Science Advisory Council. He was the team lead of Nordic Prime Minister’s Research Excellence initiative in Energy and Climate, one of the largest projects in the history of Nordic cooperation. Dr. Lund is also active in clean energy research in China and is Honorary Professor in Nanjing and received the Friendship Award and Medal, among others. He is vice-chair of the Finnish Climate Panel, advising the government and ministries on climate policies. He is member of the Finnish Academy of Science and the Swedish Engineering Academy in Finland.