The preparation of the TYNDP 2026 Scenario is supported by a coordinated joint data collection between ENTSO-E and ENTSOG, reflecting the increasing integration of Europe’s energy system. This 2026 edition has also been organised as a single, joint effort between the Scenarios team and the ENTSO-E European Resource Adequacy Assessment (ERRA) team, recognising that both scenario building and adequacy assessment rely on the same national policy foundations.
The objective is to ensure the scenario datasets reflect the latest updated NECPs, complemented where needed by national planning and strategies, including those of non EU countries. A cut-off date of December 2024 applies, meaning only policies, plans and assumptions available before that date are used in the dataset.
As the modelling framework covers an increasingly wide set of interlinked energy sectors and carriers, the data collection brings together inputs spanning all components of the integrated system. These datasets are provided by electricity and gas TSOs, through coordinated submissions where sector interactions require alignment.
For this edition, the National Trends demand is quantified for the first time directly in the Energy Transition Model (ETM – for a description of the model, see section 3.2). Using ETM to construct a fully bottom-up scenario requires a substantially more detailed set of national inputs than most NECPs provide. Hence, the bottom-up design of scenarios is aligned to NECPs and national plans, while the bottom-up reconstruction of sector and application specific energy demand has been performed by the involved TSOs. This enhanced granularity strengthens transparency around the NT demand and supports a more robust assessment of the European Union’s 2030 targets for energy and climate. The methodology for eliminating the gap between the targets and TSOs’ input can be found in chapter 9, and the results can be found in section 9.1.2 of the main report.
In addition, the structured and comprehensive approach established for NT, in other words, the collection of national trends through the ETM, as a software deployed for this task, facilitates the development of the HEV and LEV variants, providing a coherent and traceable reference point from which the economic (stress-test) variants are built.
To support this integrated modelling framework, the data collection itself is structured in a way that reflects the multidimensional nature of the energy system. While the NT quantification relies on detailed national inputs across all energy carriers, the information required to populate the modelling tools is provided through a coordinated contribution from electricity and gas TSOs. Depending on the nature of each dataset and the level of interaction between sectors, some elements are submitted jointly and others individually. The following subsections describe the different categories of data collected for TYNDP 2026.
Joint TSO Data Collection / Synchronisation
Some items directly influence both the electricity and gas–hydrogen modelling layers and therefore require a single, aligned submission per country. These elements ensure a consistent representation of sector coupling, power-to-gas interactions and multi-vector demand (Table 1).
Electricity TSO Data Collection – Pan-European Market Modelling Data Base (PEMMDB)
Electricity TSOs provide the datasets required to characterise electricity supply and flexibility (Table 2).
Gas TSO Data Collection
Gas TSOs provide all supply and infrastructure-related information for methane and hydrogen (Table 3).
| Joint Data Items (Electricity + Gas TSOs) |
|---|
| Methane and hydrogen-fired power generation capacity |
| Electrolyser capacity and associated renewable generation (grid-connected, Shared RES, Dedicated RES) |
| TYNDP demand data (ETM) |
Table 1: Joint data items
| Electricity TSO Data |
|---|
| Renewable energy sources |
| Thermal unit capacity & must runs |
| Nuclear unit capacity & must runs |
| Battery capacities (prosumer & utility scale) |
| Demand-side response (capacity & activation price bands) |
| Electricity grid information |
| Grid losses |
Table 2: Electricity TSO data collection
| Gas TSO Data |
|---|
| Hydrogen grid information |
| Biomethane production potential |
| Hydrogen production capacity (Steam Methane Reforming (SMR), pyrolysis) |
| Share of SMR equipped with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) |
| CCS and Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) capacity |
| Domestic oil and natural gas production |
| Hydrogen infrastructure candidates for 2050 (storages & cross border capacity) |
| Import potentials for hydrogen and ammonia |
Table 3: Gas TSO data collection
| Additional Data Items |
|---|
| District heating systems (municipal, industrial steam, agricultural heating) |
| Synthetic and biofuels (demand, supply, feedstock requirements) |
| Domestic ammonia production for shipping |
| Electricity demand of CCS facilities not connected to power plants (CCSnpp) |
Table 4: Additional data items
TSO Survey on Electric Vehicle Charging and Flexibility
Additionally, passenger electric vehicle (EV) assumptions are based on a dedicated survey conducted among electricity TSOs (see section 4.2). The survey was designed to capture country-specific inputs where harmonised sources are not available, in particular regarding the share of passenger EVs with flexible charging behaviour and the uptake of vehicle-to-grid (V2G). TSOs provided selections for predefined flexibility and V2G participation options, differentiated by charging location (home / prosumer and public / street charging). These survey-based inputs are applied at national level and are used to parameterise the representation of EV charging flexibility in the electricity market model, while non-passenger electric vehicles are included exogenously in electricity demand profiles.
Conceptual Capacity Increases for the 2050 Grid
In parallel with the core data collection, ENTSO-E and ENTSOG launched a targeted request in April 2025 to TSOs and project promoters for the submission of conceptual capacity increases to be considered in defining the 2050 grid for the TYNDP 2026 Scenarios. This initiative was conducted alongside the first window of the ENTSO-E TYNDP 2026 project collection and responds to the need to ensure that the long-term grid representation adequately reflects plausible infrastructure developments required to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. These conceptual capacity increases are used exclusively for the purpose of scenario modelling and are only applied to the 2050 time horizon within the TYNDP 2026 Scenarios. For the avoidance of doubt, they do not form part of the reference grid used in the TYNDP project assessments.
Conceptual Capacity Increases are defined relative to the baseline grid resulting from the consolidated ENTSO-E TYNDP 2026 and ENTSOG TYNDP 2024 project collections and are implemented as additional Net Transfer Capacity (NTC) increments on top of the baseline cross-border NTC values when defining the 2050 scenario grid.
These expansions correspond to potential new interconnection capacities that have already undergone at least preliminary technical investigations but were not submitted as formal projects in the first project collection window. While these capacity increases may still be subject to a degree of uncertainty, preliminary assessments indicate a high likelihood of future development, technical feasibility, and relevance for the achievement of the EU’s long-term decarbonisation objectives. Submissions were requested on a per-border basis and required agreement between the relevant countries to ensure a coherent cross-border representation. Eligible conceptual capacity increases include reinforcements on existing borders and new connections between neighbouring countries (including offshore hubs, provided they are consistent with geographical and maritime constraints). All submitted conceptual capacity increases had to be accompanied by a clear justification explaining their relevance, for instance in terms of system integration needs, decarbonisation pathways, or supporting technical studies. Following a qualitative review by the WGSB, only those submissions meeting the defined eligibility and justification requirements were incorporated into the 2050 grid representation of the central scenario (NT+).
Further details on the formation of the electricity and hydrogen grids across all time horizons are provided in Chapter 7 TYNDP 2026 Scenario – Grid of this report.
