Helmholtz Energy Transition Roadmap
Helmholtz Energy has developed a roadmap for energy research.
Significance for energy research
The Helmholtz Energy Transition Roadmap (HETR) provides a comprehensive understanding of the challenges associated with the energy transition and provides valuable guidance on how energy research in all disciplines can support the successful transformation of the energy system in the short, medium and long term. The Roadmap highlights a variety of technologies, materials and methods that will or could play a role in meeting these challenges. In this sense, it provides Helmholtz Energy with an orientation for strategic research planning. In addition, it can also serve as a guide for external stakeholders from science, industry and politics.
Development process of the HETR
Under the responsibility of the Helmholtz Vice-President Energy, the framework and content of the Roadmap were developed by a group of lead authors, advised by a core team. The authors also received significant support from more than 100 Helmholtz Energy researchers, who contributed their specific expertise. These researchers, organised in several interdisciplinary expert groups, cover the entire research spectrum in the fields of materials, technologies, systems and society within the ESD, MTET and FUSION programs.
Scenarios and challenges of the energy transition
The HETR is essentially based on energy scenarios, including our own Helmholtz Energy Scenarios developed as part of the ESD program as well as published national and international scenarios. We have focused on net-zero scenarios that enable a transition to climate neutrality by 2045 (Germany) and 2050 (EU and worldwide). These scenarios form the basis of Helmholtz Energy's "Transition Narrative" for a successful energy transition, which describes a future in which the energy system is secure, environmentally sound, economically viable and socially accepted, with sustainable resource cycles, not only in Germany and Europe, but worldwide.
Based on these scenarios, we have identified two main groups of challenges:
- „Transition Challenges“, which describe the overarching hurdles along possible transformation paths of the energy system.
- „Research and Innovation Challenges“, which propose possible solutions to the transformation challenges and at the same time highlight the necessary contributions from research and development to implement these solutions.
This approach is based on the European Energy Research Alliance’s (EERA) White Paper on Clean Energy Transition.
Helmholtz Energy addresses these challenges both through research aimed at immediate application and through basic research that provides fundamental understanding and long-term options for the future.
