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The recent coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak affected our society greatly, offering a chance to rebuild and rethink our way of living. Energy, as a driving factor of everyday life faced an unprecedented shock. How big was this shock for both the economic and political levels? No consolidated study exists where both aspects are considered. To rethink our way of living, we should reconsider the energy policies strategies for the upcoming years. To date, such an impact has not yet been quantified using price forecasting mathematical models. We have therefore developed a methodology, to quantify the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on European energy market. This paper is addressing the following question "Is the COVID-19 pandemic a Black Swan event?"Evidently COVID- 19 had significant consequences on the European energy market. Stocks suffered historical minimum prices duringthis year, with a greater impact on coal technologies than renewable ones. Moreover, stock prices return is showing unexpected fluctuations, hence resulting in incorrectly predicted price forecasts. Despite the initial shock, the energy market is returning to pre-crisis levels, with the renewable technologies leading the comeback. Based on our findings and methods, we conclude that COVID-19 pandemic was not a Black Swan event. We foresee to extend our methodology beyond European energy market and the short-term effects of the pandemic with possible application on the impact of policy makers on energy models. ; 0 ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sklodowska- Curie grant agreement No 643134. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/published

European Green Deal sets the EU's target towards becoming the world's first climate-neutral continent by 2050. To achieve the 2050 Green Deal target, multi-combined actions are required, such as increasing renewable energy (RE) production in the EU, enhancing efficiency, and importing RE. The limited area, high population density, and geographical position constrain the EU's RE self-sufficiency; in fact, the energy import dependency of the European Union (EU-27) reached 58.4% and 60.7% in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Interestingly, the final energy consumption by fuel comprises 23% of electricity and 77% of molecules. Consequently, a sustainable energy system requires not only green electricity but green molecules as well to move from fossil to electrified chemical industry (chemistree). In this context, the work analyses the LCOE of importing RE from Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to selected locations in the EU namely Rome, Madrid, and Cologne, since they have both a well-established energy importing/exporting network with the EU and a high potential of RE sources. A promising LCOE of H2 is found in all importing scenarios with an average of 5.20 €/kgH2. Hydrogen transport via pipelines (0.14 €/kg/1000 km) is found to be the optimal solution for the studied cases. Further investigation is required for importing RE via other types of molecules and e-fuels such as ammonia, methanol, and methane from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to the EU.

European Green Deal sets the EU's target towards becoming the world's first climate-neutral continent by 2050. To achieve the 2050 Green Deal target, multi-combined actions are required, such as increasing renewable energy (RE) production in the EU, enhancing efficiency, and importing RE. The limited area, high population density, and geographical position constrain the EU's RE self-sufficiency; in fact, the energy import dependency of the European Union (EU-27) reached 58.4% and 60.7% in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Interestingly, the final energy consumption by fuel comprises 23% of electricity and 77% of molecules. Consequently, a sustainable energy system requires not only green electricity but green molecules as well to move from fossil to electrified chemical industry (chemistree). In this context, the work analyses the LCOE of importing RE from Morocco, Algeria, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to selected locations in the EU namely Rome, Madrid, and Cologne, since they have both a well-established energy importing/exporting network with the EU and a high potential of RE sources. A promising LCOE of H2 is found in all importing scenarios with an average of 5.20 €/kgH2. Hydrogen transport via pipelines (0.14 €/kg/1000 km) is found to be the optimal solution for the studied cases. Further investigation is required for importing RE via other types of molecules and e-fuels such as ammonia, methanol, and methane from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to the EU.