Policymakers face the acute challenge of balancing economic competitiveness with climate change and energy security issues. Finding an equilibrium will require comprehensive and cohesive long-term policies, targets and strategies, elaborated into appropriate short- and medium-term action plans and measures to achieve them. In other words, overall energy policy planning is becoming increasingly complex.

Today’s main policy questions relate to what an energy policy should look like to be robust and flexible enough to deal with the uncertainties of the future. Therefore, a scenario-approach relying on energy system models is essential to support decision making because modern energy system analysis provides the best chance of ensuring decisions will not be regretted in the medium to long term. The results of these analyses can help change prejudiced perceptions of energy and climate issues within governments, and steer public discussion.

Developing analytical capacity (i.e. tools and staff skills) is complex and time-consuming. To maintain – and especially expand – a country’s capacity for long-term energy planning, adequate resources need to be allocated, particularly to a dedicated modelling team, to ensure continuity. The costs associated with energy system modelling are dwarfed by the economic benefits of robust, well-informed policy decisions. Indeed, the substitute for a modelling framework is simply educated guesswork.

In addition, energy modelling and scenario analysis also require reliable energy statistics as input data to depict the current situation of the energy sector. Thus, the development of energy modelling capabilities should be complemented by improvements in the collection, validation and analysis of national energy statistics.

This roadmap builds on IEA analysis of long-term energy policy planning, and further explores the capacity required at the national level for the different work areas. It equally targets countries in the early stages of developing long-term energy plans and those with more established structures seeking to further develop a specific area or sector.

We therefore provide countries with a self-assessment framework to identify key areas for further improvement, as well as a list of available resources that national stakeholders can immediately tap into. It is advisable for countries to expand from a modest base to establish relevant processes and build up their capacity gradually.