07 October 2024
Europe’s grid operators unprepared for renewables surge, warns energy watchdog
Ljubljana, 7 October 2024 — Europe’s energy watchdog has issued a sharp critique of the continent’s grid operators, declaring them unprepared for the imminent surge in renewable energy. The agency warns that without changes to their plans, Europe’s grid infrastructure will be unable to support the electrification of the economy. This would further drive up energy bills for households and businesses and hinder progress toward Europe’s climate goals.
The European Union’s Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators’ (ACER) review [1] evaluates the latest 10-Year Network Development Plan [2] from Europe’s electricity and gas grid operators (ENTSO-E and ENTSOG). It highlights significant gaps in their preparations for the clean energy transition and notes that their scenarios underestimate the exponential growth of renewable technologies. Key issues identified include:
- Insufficient planning for the expected high levels of renewable energy additions in the future.
- Failure to recognise existing trends in renewable energy deployment. For instance, current battery storage already exceeds projections made under their draft scenarios [3].
- Poor stakeholder engagement, leading to a lack of transparency.
ACER is the second EU watchdog to criticise the grid operators’ proposals. The European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change also published a negative opinion earlier this year [4], finding, “these scenarios could put the EU at risk of overshooting its share of the global greenhouse gas budget through excessive emissions from the energy sector”.
Juliet Phillips, Energy Campaigner for Beyond Fossil Fuels, said:
“ACER’s analysis confirms what we have already forewarned – that Europe’s major grid operators are failing to plan for the necessary scale of renewable energy additions to the grid. If left unaddressed, this could push up energy bills for households and businesses and fail to support Europe’s climate objectives. This is a wake up call for national energy regulators who need to push grid system operators to update their plans to make them compatible with a renewables-based power system by 2035.”
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Contacts:
Alastair Clewer, Senior Communications Manager, Beyond Fossil Fuels, [email protected], +4917643307185
Juliet Phillips, Energy Campaigner, Beyond Fossil Fuels
[email protected], +44 7443 503328
Notes:
- The European Union’s Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators’ (ACER) full opinion: https://www.acer.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/Official_documents/Acts_of_the_Agency/Opinions/Opinions/ACER_Opinion_05-2024_ENTSOs_Scenarios_TYNDP_Guidelines.pdf
- The 10-year network development plan (TYNDP) outlines how Europe’s grid operators plan to develop infrastructure to support the energy transition: https://www.acer.europa.eu/electricity/infrastructure/network-development/ten-year-network-development-plan
- ACER found “several significant inconsistencies”, where the draft scenarios were falling behind current trends of exponential growth in clean technologies. For example, in Austria, solar PV generation was lower in the grid operators’ draft scenario than in the country’s network infrastructure plan. In the Czech Republic, there were “especially notable” deviations on heat pump take-up. Electricity storage levels also fail to reflect reality, as current installed battery levels are already higher than the ones forecasted under the draft “high trajectory” scenario.
- European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change calls for considerable improvement to the draft scenarios used for cross-EU energy network development:
https://climate-advisory-board.europa.eu/news/eu-climate-advisory-board-calls-for-considerable-improvement-to-the-draft-scenarios-used-for-cross-eu-energy-network-development - Upgrading Europe’s outdated electricity grid is widely understood as central to the EU’s energy security and industrial competitiveness. A recent report from Mario Draghi to the European Parliament noted that without increasing the pace of permitting and raising investment in grids, by 2040, the EU could lose up to ten times more renewable energy generation due to grid constraints.
- Earlier this year, climate think tank Ember found that a number of European grid operators’ plans are based on under-ambitious energy scenarios, risking that networks are poorly prepared to support expected wind and solar build out.