Optimizing Local Energy Systems Through Bottom-Up Modelling: A TIMES-Based Analysis for the Municipality of Tito, Southern Italy

The energy transition is an essential process for mitigating the effects of climate change in a global context where recent conflicts threaten energy security. Municipalities play an increasing role in achieving the decarbonization targets set at a national level, but they need effective tools to identify the most appropriate actions and policies for achieving quantitative targets. Among the tools available, energy models allow us to represent the evolution of the energy system under different boundary conditions or constraints and defining the least-cost pathways for sustainable development. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of a bottom-up modeling approach in the framework of the ETSAP TIMES model generator to represent and optimize the local-scale energy system of the city of Tito in Southern Italy, with a particular focus on the residential and tertiary sectors. The optimization of a Business-as-Usual reference scenario over a thirty-year time horizon (2020–2050) shows an initial situation based on the prevalent use of natural gas. The sensitivity analysis carried out by gradually increasing the cost of natural gas and providing subsidies for the purchase of heat pumps shows a 92% reduction in fossil fuel consumption and a 60% for CO2 emissions as early as 2030.