  Importing renewable energy to Europe offers many potential benefits,
including reduced energy costs, lower pressure on infrastructure development,
and less land-use within Europe. However, there remain many open questions: on
the achievable cost reductions, how much should be imported, whether the energy
vector should be electricity, hydrogen or hydrogen derivatives like ammonia or
steel, and their impact on Europe's domestic energy infrastructure needs. This
study integrates the TRACE global energy supply chain model with the
sector-coupled energy system model for Europe PyPSA-Eur to explore scenarios
with varying import volumes, costs, and vectors. We find system cost reductions
of 1-14%, depending on assumed import costs, with diminishing returns for
larger import volumes and a preference for methanol, steel and hydrogen
imports. Keeping some domestic power-to-X production is beneficial for
integrating variable renewables, utilising waste heat from fuel synthesis and
leveraging local sustainable carbon sources. Our findings highlight the need
for coordinating import strategies with infrastructure policy and reveal
maneuvering space for incorporating non-cost decision factors.
