The TYNDP 2020 Final Scenario Report describes possible European energy futures up to 2050. Scenarios are not forecasts; they set out a range of possible futures used by the ENTSO-E and ENTSOG to test future electricity and gas infrastructure needs and projects.

The scenarios are ambitious as they deliver a low carbon energy system for Europe by 2050. ENTSO-E and ENTSOG have developed credible scenarios that are guided by technically sound pathways, while reflecting country by country specifics, so that a pan European low carbon future is achieved.

Regulation (EU) 347/2013 requires that the ENTSO-E and ENTSOG use scenarios for their respective Ten-Year Network Development Plans (TYNDPs) 2020. ENTSO-E use scenarios to assess electricity security of supply for the ENTSO-E Mid-Term Adequacy Forecast (MAF).

All scenarios head towards a decarbonised future and have been designed to reduce GHG emissions in line with EU targets for 2030 or the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) Paris Agreement objective of keeping temperature rise below 1.5°C.

The joint scenario report is a basis towards an interlinked model of ENTSO-E and ENTSOG. TYNDP 2018 was the first time ENTSOG and ENTSO-E cooperated jointly on scenario development. There are strong synergies and co-dependency between gas and electricity infrastructures, it is increasingly important to understand the impacts as European policy seeks to deliver a carbon-neutral energy system by 2050.

Joint scenarios allow ENTSOG and ENTSO-E to assess future infrastructure needs and projects against the same future outlooks. The outcomes from the joint scenarios provide decision makers with better information, as they seek to make informed choices that will benefit all European consumers. Combining the efforts from gas and electricity TSOs give ENTSOG and ENTSO-E an opportunity to tap into cross-sectoral knowledge and expertise that would otherwise be missing. Joint working provides access to a broader range of stakeholders who are actively participating in the energy sector.

The joint scenario building process has three storylines for TYNDP 2020. National Trends is the central policy scenario of this report, designed to reflect the most recent EU member state National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP), submitted to the EC in line with the requirement to meet current European 2030 energy strategy targets. National Trends represents a policy scenario used in the infrastructure assessment phase of ENTSOG’s and ­ENTSO-E’s respective Ten-Year Network Development Plans (TYNDP) 2020, with a more in-depth analysis as compared to the other scenarios.

In addition, ENTSO-E and ENTSOG have created two scenarios in line with the COP21 targets (Distributed Energy and Global Ambition) with the objective to understand the impact on infrastructure needs against different pathways reducing EU-28 emissions to net-zero by 2050. The three scenario storylines developed in consultation with stakeholders are detailed extensively in ENTSOG and ENTSO-E Storylines Report¹ released in May 2019. Distributed Energy has been further adapted on the 2040–2050 time horizon taking into account stakeholder feedback and to ensure higher differentiation with the other COP21 Scenario, Global Ambition.

The development of the scenarios builds on storylines and a methodology to translate the storylines into parameters and eventually figures. The TYNDP 2020 Scenario Building Guidelines³ provides full transparency on how the scenarios are elaborated and how the development of different demand technologies, generation and conversion capacities, renewable shares and all other parameters are considered.

As outlined in Regulation (EU) 347/2013, ENTSOG and ENTSO-E are required to use scenarios as the basis for the official Ten Year Network Development Plans (created every two years by ENTSO-E and ENTSO-G) and for the calculation of the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) used to determine EU funding for electricity and gas infrastructure Projects of Common Interest (PCI). The scenarios were designed specifically for this purpose. Where possible, they have been derived from official EU and member-state data sources, and are intended to provide an impartial quantitative basis for infrastructure investment planning.

The scenarios are intended to project the long-term energy demand and supply for ENTSO-G’s and ENTSO-E’s Ten Year Network Development Plan development within the context of the ongoing Energy Transition. They are designed in such a way that they specifically explore those uncertainties which are relevant for gas and electricity infrastructure development. As such, they primarily focus on aspects which determine the infrastructure utilisation. Furthermore, the scenarios draw extensively on the current political and economic consensus and attempt to follow a logical trajectory to achieve future energy and climate targets.

The scenarios should provide the user with insight into the energy system of the future and the role of electricity and gas carriers in this energy system. Users are able to determine the effects of changes in supply and demand on the energy system. The European and global perspectives for these scenarios enable the user to track supply and demand developments geographically as well as temporally and to gain greater insight into the challenges facing energy infrastructure during the Energy Transition.

The Working Group Scenario Building has gone to great lengths to build on the 2020 Scenario Report and to increase its ambitions, especially in considering external factors such as the Energy Transition and the decarbonisation of the European energy system on energy infrastructure. Nonetheless, it is important to recognise that the scope of these scenarios remains focused on providing sufficient input data to model future infrastructure needs.

The Working Group Scenario Building have sought to avoid making political statements with these scenarios and, as far as possible, to anchor key parameters in widely accepted data and assumptions. The National Trends scenario exists within an input framework provided by official data sets (such as PRIMES) and official energy policies (the NECPs of the EU member states). The goal of the Working Group Scenario Building has been to maintain a neutral perspective to these inputs.

While the top-down scenarios have greater room for innovation to meet more ambitious decarbonisation of the Energy system up to 2050, it is not the intention of the Working Group Scenario Building to use these scenarios to push political agendas attached to the use or non-use of specific energy carriers or technologies. The main focus of the TYNDP Scenario Report is the long-term development of energy infrastructure. As such, the differences between the two top-down scenarios (Global Ambition and Distributed Energy) are predominantly related to possible variations in demand and supply patterns.

To this end, all the scenarios in the TYNDP 2020 Scenario Report remain technology and energy-carrier neutral. The energy mix deployed in each of these scenarios has been designed to reflect a broad consensus within the energy industry and correlates to a large extent with official literature – most prominently with the EU’s own Long-Term Strategy scenarios.

Where the scenarios have incorporated parameters defined by external analysis (such as the calculation of a carbon budget by Climate Action Network Europe or the Biomethane Tool designed with the support of Navigant), the external analysis conforms to the widely accepted understanding of these topics.

The TYNDP 2020 Scenario Report attempts to reflect the Energy Transition and the decarbonisation efforts of the European energy system in its scenarios. This is incorporated by the use of the COP21 Agreement (in the form of a carbon budget calculation) as one of the key input parameters for the top-down scenarios. However, it is important to recognize that it is beyond the scope (and indeed the resources) of the Working Group Scenario Building to analyse political, environmental and indeed societal developments on the widest scale.

Above all it is important to recognize the fast-moving nature of the Energy Transition in Europe. The Working Group Scenario Building recognises the reality that some of the input parameters used in the creation of these scenarios may well need to be adjusted in the months and years to come as the energy policy of the EU and its member states evolves to meet the challenges of climate change. We take this opportunity to remind the reader that the TYNDP Scenario Building Process is an iterative process and it continues to evolve based on external influences. A scenario is a picture of the future; however, it is also a reflection of the present knowledge and the foreseeable challenges face today.