Technical Note 3: Transparency of Modelling

Energy system models play an important role in the process of deriving climate strategies and policies. Full transparency in calculating these long-term scenarios is essential for credibility and reproducibility of the scenarios and the respective climate strategies. Open data and models furthermore enable broad collaboration and increase efficiency by avoiding duplication of work.

Despite these benefits and although the number of open energy models and available data sets have significantly increased in recent years, black box models are still applied on European and country level.

The technical note gives an overview of the openness aspects of energy modelling, practical advice for progress in that field and summarizes remaining challenges and possible measures.