Model-based scenarios of EU27 electricity supply are not aligned with the perspectives of French, German, and Polish citizens

With the European Green Deal, the European Union (EU27) aims to achieve an ambitious decarbonization of its electricity supply, while actively involving its citizens. Scenarios from energy and electricity sector models seek to inform this transition, although it is unclear to what extent these scenarios are aligned with the views of the citizens. In this study, four multi-organization, multi-model ensembles of existing electricity supply scenarios have been compiled for France, Germany, Poland, and the whole EU27 in 2035, leading to 612 scenarios in total. These scenarios were then compared with 601 preferred scenarios elicited from French, German, and Polish citizens in a survey with an interactive scenario tool. Results show that model-based and citizens’ preferred scenarios converged only on having moderate shares of onshore and offshore wind power and low shares of biomass and waste incineration. In contrast to the majority of model-based scenarios, most Polish and German citizens preferred a deeper decarbonization for their national electricity supply, while French citizens preferred a deeper denuclearization. Additionally, most citizens of all three countries used significant shares of solar photovoltaics and low shares of fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage, hence diverging from model-based scenarios. Similar patterns were found for the EU27 scenarios: many model-based scenarios included large shares of nuclear power, natural gas, and coal, while surveyed citizens preferred scenarios dominated by diverse renewable sources. European modelers should now quantify these missing scenarios so that the EU27 energy transition can be informed by modeling that is in line with citizens’ perspectives.