METIS - An energy modelling tool to support transparent policy making

The European Commission (EC) is continuously improving its evidence-based policy making in the energy field. In that context, it is developing a new energy model to analyse detailed features of constantly evolving European Union's energy systems. The model - METIS -simulates the operation of both energy systems and energy markets for electricity, gas and heat on an hourly basis for a whole year. It can also factor in uncertainties like weather variations- a feature particularly important for dealing with the integration of renewable energy. Most importantly, to ensure transparency, a webpage dedicated to METIS contains significant model related information: from studies performed using it to relevant data, documentation, and eventually its source code. METIS has already been used in the EC's Impact Assessments supporting the proposals under the Clean Energy for All Europeans package.