We are pleased to jointly present the TYNDP 2026 Scenarios underpinning ENTSO-E’s and ENTSOG’s 2026 Ten-Year Network Development Plans (TYNDP). The joint electricity, gas, and hydrogen scenario and, for the first time ever, the economic variants provide a consistent and forward-looking foundation for planning Europe’s future energy infrastructure in support of the energy transition.
Scenarios are a prerequisite for outlook assessment of the European energy system. Under the TEN-E Regulation (EU) 2022/869 and the ACER TYNDP Scenarios Framework Guidelines, they play a central role in ensuring that infrastructure planning across electricity, methane and hydrogen is aligned, coherent, and based on shared assumptions. The TYNDP 2026 cycle marks the first full implementation of these Guidelines from the outset, strengthening the transparency, comparability, and reliability of the scenario-building process.
Sonya Twohig
Secretary-General ENTSO-E
Piotr Kuś
General Director ENTSOG
Within the legal boundaries outlined above, modelling is performed by the technical operators (ENTSO-E and ENTSOG). This ensures robust system analysis and projections based on operational expertise. It ensures a direct link to national planning realities, operational needs and infrastructure delivery, which is essential for credible and implementable grid deployment. ENTSO-E and ENTSOG contribute as trusted advisors and bring well established expertise, hands-on experience, and in-depth knowledge to the process. This insight is essential to create realistic scenarios based on industries and citizens’ needs while enabling political ambitions to meet the energy and climate goals.
The TYNDP 2026 Scenarios Framework introduces a streamlined structure centred on one Central Scenario (National Trends +), complemented by two Economic Variants reflecting high and low economic growth. The Central Scenario reflects the latest national strategies, updated National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs), and EU policy objectives, while the Economic Variants act as stress tests in assessing the resilience of the energy system under different macroeconomic conditions. Together, they provide a credible and policy-aligned basis in determining infrastructure requirements for a secure, interconnected and sustainable future.
The Central Scenario illustrates a profound transformation of Europe’s energy system towards climate neutrality by 2050. It highlights a structural transformation of Europe’s energy landscape with a continued decline in overall energy demand driven by efficiency gains and electrification, alongside strong growth in electricity demand.
Methane demand progressively decreases and becomes a fully decarbonised energy vector over time, while hydrogen emerges as a key energy carrier, particularly in the industry sector and as the major source of flexibility. These trends underline the growing importance of an integrated energy system in which electricity and hydrogen play central roles, supported by decarbonised and renewable gases.
In line with EU requirements, the Central Scenario’s design is consistent with the Union’s 2030 energy and climate targets and the 2050 climate neutrality objective. Where gaps between aggregated national trajectories and EU-level targets were identified, a transparent and harmonised methodology was applied to ensure alignment while preserving national contributions. The results are benchmarked against external European studies, reinforcing their credibility.
The development of the scenario followed a structured and inclusive process, with extensive stakeholder engagement and public consultations. In particular, we express our appreciation to everyone involved in the Stakeholder Reference Group (SRG) who guide us in a structured review on methodologies and datasets, ensuring transparency, broad participation, and effective scrutiny. This collaborative approach contributes directly to the quality and buy-in of the results.
The resulting scenario and its variants form the analytical backbone for the ENTSO-E and ENTSOG TYNDPs, enabling the assessments of infrastructure gaps, identification of investment gaps and the evaluation of project benefits. They provide policymakers, Member States, and stakeholders with a shared and dependable reference to support informed decisions on Europe’s future energy infrastructure. In addition to TYNDP Scenarios, the ENTSO-E European Resource Adequacy Assessment (ERAA) reflects the importance to more deeply analyse risks within a 10-year period. ENTSOG proposes further work to undertake a more thorough investigation of adequacy between supply and demand in the context of the gas grid infrastructure and the ongoing status of the energy transition via the Mid-Term European Gas Adequacy Assessment.
The EU Grids Package includes a proposal to revise of the TEN-E Regulation which is a cornerstone for the TYNDPs used by ENTSO-E, ENTSOG, ENNOH and national TSOs. It is more important than ever to have robust system planning based on TYNDP Scenarios that reflect targets, technical context and are rooted in the reality to deliver infrastructure. ENTSO-E and ENTSOG stand ready to continue their work in next TYNDPs together with stakeholders. Geopolitical context and national policies change rapidly, and correct investment decisions should be made for infrastructure that will have long lasting impact to create resilience and reduce costs.
Our scenario teams remain available for any further information at scenarios@entsos-tyndp-scenarios.eu. We look forward to continuing our cooperation with all stakeholders as we move forward in the TYNDP process.
