7th International Summer Academy "Energy and the Environment"

The 7th Summer Academy, entitled “Transnational Energy Grids: Challenges on the Way to Sustainable Energy Transmission,” addresses the fundamental interrelationships between energy and environment. Energy grids are the lifelines of modern industrialised societies. In Europe, they are also an essential condition for a functioning Single European Market. Their importance is increasingly acknowledged in order to establish an environmentally sustainable energy policy. The grid network of offshore wind parks, the commercial viability of solar power transmission from remote locations like North Africa and the Middle East and the development of carbon pipelines capable of supporting carbon capture and storage represent monumental political, technological, financial and legal challenges. In addition, projects like the Baltic Sea pipleline, realizing a Northern European integrated grid, and the planned natural gas distribution network in South and Southeast Europe raise questions of environmental sustainability, technological and legal challenges, and supply security. In the end, intelligent networks are recognized as an indispensable prerequisite to completely integrate renewable energies and to introduce sustainable electric vehicle mobility.