Stakeholder engagement and how it shaped the scenarios

In the 2022 Scenario Report-cycle, the Scenario Building Team agreed to include stakeholders from the very beginning. This began at the kick-off meeting for the process on 3 July 2020, where stakeholder questions were documented (via an interactive Q & A app used during the event), answered and subsequently published on the 2022 TYNDP Storyline Report website.

During the public consultation of the draft storylines, we received about 30 responses from a variety of stakeholder (including NGOs, associations, energy companies and research institutes). At the Draft Storyline Consultation Workshop on 2 December 2020, more than 60 participants were in attendance and 46 questions were received.

As with the kick-off meeting, the questions received at this event or otherwise have been answered by the Scenario Building Team and published as part of the Final Storyline Report. This stakeholder engagement has continued since completion of the Storyline Report.

In May 2021, ENTSOG and ENTSO-E hosted a dedicated workshop on extra-EU supply potentials, with the goal of sharing their own assumptions and receiving stakeholder feedback. After the publication of the Draft Scenario Report, stakeholders were once again offered the opportunity to share their views, both in written form (via a six-week public consultation) and via a public workshop.

During the 2020 scenario building process, ENTSOG and ENTSO-E engaged with the NGO CAN Europe to calculate a carbon budget for the two COP21 compliant scenarios. This approach gave the carbon budget more credibility and provided ENTSOG and ENTSO-E with important insights from external experts that enhanced the final scenarios. After the success of this cooperation in the TYNDP 2020 Scenario Report, ENTSOG and ENTSO-E decided to expand their interaction with external organisations.

In order to provide greater transparency on key data parameters and assumptions used throughout the scenario building process, the Scenario Building Team decided to document and publish all interactions via bilateral meetings conducted with external stakeholders (e. g. research institutions, industry organisations etc.). After publishing an initial list of bilateral meetings as part of the Storyline Report, this list has been updated for the publication of the Draft Scenario Report and made available in the download section. This documentation provides greater transparency and shows clearly the wide range of organisations that have contributed to the creation of the report.

After criticism of the qualitative “storyline matrix” produced for the 2020 Storyline Report, the Scenario Building Team chose to completely revise this element of the scenario building process. For the 2022 Storyline Report, the Scenario Building Team included not only qualitative questions in their public consultation, but also quantitative ranges on key parameters (e. g. development trajectories for important technologies or energy carriers) based on data from reputable external studies.

This gave stakeholders the opportunity to directly influence the underlying assumptions for the scenarios.

In order to ensure stakeholders that their consultation responses have been considered as part of the scenario building process, the scenario building team decided to publish all consultation feedback received in the storyline consultation of November – December 2020.

The scenario building team often receives feedback from external stakeholders outside of the planned consultation windows.

While the team has always made every effort to respond to this feedback and answer any questions, it was decided that this correspondence should also be published as part of the 2022 cycle. This information is available in the download section. This publication enhances transparency and provides further insight into the process.

On 7 October 2021 ENTSOG and ENTSO-E published their draft joint TYNDP 2022 Scenario Report. The release of this document also marked the start of a public consultation. An online workshop was held on 20 October 2021 where ENTSOG and ENTSO-E presented their draft scenarios and further clarified the scenario report and associated documents. This workshop also provided stakeholders with the opportunity to ask questions to the scenario building team. 178 people attended this workshop and 50 questions were asked. Each of them was either answered during the webinar or in writing afterwards. All workshop material including answers to all questions are available in the in the download section.

As part of the public consultation, ENTSOG and ENTSO-E received responses from 32 stakeholders (this does not include bilateral or non-consultation feedback from institutions such as the European Commission and ACER). These responses came from a wide variety of stakeholders including associations, energy companies, think tanks, researchers and NGOs. It shows the high level of engagement these organisations were able to achieve in the scenario building process. All comments including ENTSOG and ENTSO-E responses are available in the download section.

In the draft report great effort was put in the detail of the scenarios and the associated datasets. Several stakeholder however pointed out areas where more information could be beneficial. ENTSOG and ENTSO-E have taken action upon these suggestions to further clarify certain assumption and to further improve the scenario datasets. To give some examples:

Some stakeholders felt that the electricity demand in the scenarios could be increased. It was pointed out that the market share of BEVs in Distributed Energy 2030 was a bit conservative, also in relation to the high share for 2050. Furthermore, it was suggested to increase BEV shares for heavy goods transport to differentiate the scenarios further.

Both points were addressed in the updated Distributed Energy scenario. As a result the, electrification rate in Distributed Energy now reaches 52 % percent in 2050.

The draft scenarios for TYNDP 2022 were designed with a level of biomass which did not exceed the levels observed in the Impact Assessment from the European Commission. Distributed Energy was comparable to the CPRICE scenario, whereas Global Ambition was lower that the Impact Assessment.

In the public consultation several stakeholders commented that the biomass utilization should be lower. In response the level in Distributed Energy was reduced. As a result both Distributed Energy and Global Ambition are now below the Impact Assessment. The scenario report has been expanded to provide more details regarding the biomass assumptions.

Some stakeholders have advocated for a more ambitious development of solar PV. It is especially true for the Distributed Energy scenario in order to be closer from the upper range of the Final Storyline Report and to take into the better acceptability of such technology. In parallel, offshore wind capacity of draft Global Ambition exceeded the Final Storyline Report upper range. The level has been adjusted accordingly.

Scenario differentiation at EU level reaches 10 % for offshore wind, 20 % for onshore wind and 50 % for solar. Finally wind and solar development in Global Ambition is in line with EC Impact Assessment scenarios. Distributed Energy achieves higher level as nuclear capacity is significantly lower than in EC scenarios.

Based on stakeholder feedback, battery capacity and V2G availability have been increased especially for Distributed Energy. In parallel the activation cost of demand shedding has been decreased to model a stronger participation of prosumer in the adequacy of the electricity system.

Demand shedding capacity has also been increased in 2050 for Distributed Energy in order to match the evolution of final electricity demand.

In the public consultation some stakeholders commented on a lack of dedicated renewable capacities for hydrogen production with electrolysis. Furthermore, it was pointed out the option of power to methane (P2M) was missing in the scenarios. Both point were addressed in the updated scenarios. Although the draft scenario report already included some dedicated RES for electrolysis, this was not shown in the figures.

The report and its datasets have been adapted to specifically show the dedicated RES for hydrogen production as a separate category. Furthermore, additional dedicated RES with electrolysis for power to methane production have been added in both scenarios.

As most of national material focuses on the path to 2030, extending the National Trends scenario beyond 2040 would require additional assumptions no longer reflecting national policies and strategies. To enable a timely delivery of the draft scenario report the scenario results for National Trends 2040 time horizon were not yet included at Draft Scenario report stage.

ENTSOG and ENTSO-E performed the necessary analyses in parallel to the public consultation and the subsequent feedback implementation. The National Trends 2040 results have been included in the updated scenario report and the Visualisation Platform.

In the draft scenario report for TYNDP 2022 the presented dispatchable thermal capacities for power generation did not fully take into account adequacy needs. Compared to the draft scenarios, a security of supply step has been added at the end of the electricity modelling process in order to ensure an adequacy level close to current one (below 4 hours of unserved energy). As a result of this adequacy step, additional (gas fired) peaking units and batteries were added on a country level. The impact these additional units on the dispatch modelling is also considered in the scenario results.

More information on the applied methodology can be found in the updated Scenario Building Guidelines.