SINTEF is the largest independent research institute in Scandinavia with 1800 employees in major areas of science and technology. SINTEF cooperates closely with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, sharing offices, laboratories and staff. This talk will give an overview of energy system analysis at SINTEF Energy Research, with special emphasis on two new projects relevant to planning of complex energy systems: Alternatives for the Transition to Sustainable Energy Services in Northern Europe (TRANSES). This project focuses on the long term developments of energy and society and on the critical policy decisions to be made to ensure that we are "heading in the right direction".  Energy transport systems with multiple energy carriers. The objective of this project is to develop a planning tool for local energy systems (regional, municipal, suburb level) where the planner has to choose between different alternative techologies and different energy carriers.  Dr. Bakken received his MSc in electrical engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) in 1989. His main areas of work include distributed energy systems, energy system planning, operation and control, ancillary services, frequency and power control, and power flow analysis.