EU regulatory body criticises gas network plans

Europe's national transmission system operators for gas (ENTSO-G) and electricity (ENTSO-E) have produced mandatory ten-year network development plans (TYNDP) that fall short of the standards expected, according to the Association for the Co-operation of Energy Regulators (ACER), an EU body based in Slovenia. 

Liquefaction terminals, pipelines and other infrastructure that hope to become EU Projects of Common Interest and hence qualify for public funding have to be included in the latest TYNDP.

And at least one stakeholder, offering feedback during the drafting process, argued that the two organisations should work together, in the spirit of market coupling and  extracting greater operational efficiencies (see below).

Every two years, ACER provides a non-binding opinion on the draft grid plans and in its latest report it says the 2020 plans "do not sufficiently contribute to the efficient market due to several shortcomings."

ACER says there are "too many" conventional gas projects, worth close to €75 ($90)bn, in the draft gas plan. This amount does not fit well with Europe's decarbonisation objectives, ACER says. And "despite ongoing efforts, the TYNDP framework still fails to properly assess the contribution of gas projects to sustainability."

The EU framework for energy infrastructure needs to be robust for cost-efficient cross-border projects which are best for the energy transition, it says.

ACER has called on the European co-legislators to consider the regulators’ proposals as a solution to promote a neutral technical assessment of infrastructure projects in line with the European Green Deal, avoiding risks of unjustified costs to European consumers. TSOs can be perceived as biased towards favouring more infrastructure than may be needed, as that is the basis on which they may earn revenue, which in turn comes from energy consumers' pockets, ACER said.

Cross-sectoral optimisation

In the view of one stakeholder, the ENTSOs' modelling and CBA methodologies should evolve towards deeper cross-sectoral optimisation. "The interplay of all potential flexibility options, such as more efficient use of existing infrastructure, demand response, different storage technologies, flexible generation capacities need to be taken into account," one respondent said.

It suggested developing a joint chapter with ENTSO-E to align on the need for the coupling of electricity and gas grids in both TYNDPs. A consistent methodological framework for the assessment of gas energy transition projects, evaluating interlinkages and redundancies with electricity and heat networks, should be developed.

Late in April, the Danish grid operator Energinet.dk announced plans to merge the gas and power grids. It said this was the best way to meet the goals of the energy transition.

Another respondent said that there should be more attention paid in the TYNDP to gas developments at distribution level, as that is where renewable gas is injected.

ACER's full opinion paper may be read here.