After passing through six weeks of public consultation, ENTSO-E’s pilot Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) is now finalised, and includes the results of the consultation. The publication of the TYNDP marks the end of a significant effort by ENTSO-E (the organisation of European TSOs), with support from the European Commission and many key stakeholders, to fulfill one of its major tasks according to European legislation. It is also the start of a new chapter of more intense work leading to the second release of the plan in two years’ time.

The reason for ENTSO-E’s initiative was to anticipate the entry into force of Regulation (EC) 714/2009, and thus to address the urgency of building transmission lines necessary to enable the achievement of the European Energy Policy goals.

ENTSO-E’s next release, due in two years, will be mainly the development of a “20/20/20 scenario“. There is some urgency because grid development requires time, while little time is left for meeting the EU 20/20 targets.

Furthermore, the construction of multiple scenarios for evaluating new assets is evidently an indispensable tool when dealing with uncertainties. The TYNDP therefore concludes that developing shared, long-term, top down, scenarios, involving ACER (the European Agency for the Co-operation of Energy Regulators), stakeholders, policy and decision-makers is a major concern for ENTSO-E, with a goal of defining at least the 2020 horizon.

The consultation clearly indicated that permitting procedures and authorisation processes constitute the most relevant obstacle to building new transmission facilities, pointing to the need of simplifying and shortening the regulatory approval processes for new lines, without impairing citizens’ rights.  

The TYNDP is intended as a reference document whose future editions can also be an important basis for future European legislation focused on energy infrastructure development. Work is already starting on the elaboration of regional investment plans, and focusing on three key aspects:

• updating present ‘bottom-up’ scenarios and developing shared, long-run, top-down, scenarios, involving ACER, stakeholders, policy and decision-makers;

• developing common ENTSO-E pan-European market modelling, reflecting as closely as possible the forces that drive the commercial flow of electricity and its translation into physical power flows;

• further developing an ENTSO-E wide common framework for regional network studies, based on pan-European scenarios and an integrated mid- and long-term network model.

The full document can be downloaded at:

https://www.entsoe.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/_library/SDC/TYNDP/TYNDP-final_document.pdf