ENTSOs' Ten Year Development Plan at odds with the Paris Agreement

Today, Eurelectric wrote to Commissioner Simson to express serious concerns on the Ten Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) 2020 draft scenarios, jointly elaborated by the ENTSOs.

Smart energy infrastructures are key for achieving Europe’s carbon neutrality by 2050 and deliver on the Paris Agreement. Network development must therefore consider the dramatic evolution of Europe’s electricity mix going forward and plan electricity and gas infrastructure requirements accordingly. This is the only way to deliver in a coordinated, cost-effective and future proof manner.

Eurelectric sees three major problems with the proposed TYNDP:

First, it fails to consistently ensure compliance with the Paris Agreement across scenarios. The “National Trends” scenario, which serves as the sole basis for the selection of Projects of Common Interest, is in line with the less ambitious EU’s 2030 Climate and Energy Framework.

Second, the electricity demand and electrification rates are not aligned with the Commission’s Long Term Strategy. Moreover, across the scenarios, the share of electricity in the demand reaches maximum 50%, which is 10 percentage points lower than Eurelectric’s own estimates.

Third, the forecasted gas demand is considerably high and divergent from Commission’s Long Term Strategy. Worryingly, the “Global Ambition” scenario assumes that 75% of the decarbonised gas needed by the EU will be imported from third countries. Adequate network planning should consider the different starting points and commercial availability of key technologies, in order to ensure an affordable and secure supply of carbon neutral energy.

The TYNDP must be aligned with the 2050 decarbonisation ambitions. This is a requirement to ensure the deployment in Europe of future-proof networks accommodating millions of electric vehicles and steeply increasing amounts of connected electric heat pumps, batteries and other grid edge technologies. Therefore, the scenarios should provide a wider data spread, which allows to test infrastructure and identify weak spots.

Eurelectric highlights the need to revise the governance for the elaboration of the TYNDP in parallel with the review of the TEN-E Regulation.  

A detailed assessment can be read in Eurelectric’s response to the Public consultation on the TYNDP draft scenario report.