Ways to ensure a climate-neutral and climate-resilient EU energy infrastructure

To be able to reduce the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions, it is important that the network planning process drives the transition towards renewable-based and efficient energy systems.

Energy supply and use are responsible for 77% of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions. It is therefore important that the network planning process drives the transition towards renewable-based and efficient energy systems, and avoids creating further lock-ins into fossil infrastructure. It is also critical for network planning to ensure the resilience of the EU’s energy infrastructure to the impacts of climate change, such as extreme temperatures, water shortages and flooding risks.

To ensure that the planning process for trans-European energy networks supports the required energy transition towards climate neutrality and climate resilience in the European Union by 2050, the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change provided recommendations to the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) on its guidelines for scenarios to be used for network development planning.

The Advisory Board urges ACER to emphasise the long-term perspective of infrastructure planning and climate impacts, in order to avoid stranded assets, as well as the need to bridge the gap between current plans and the goal of climate neutrality. To do so in a robust manner, energy system scenarios need to cover a wide range of the uncertainties impacting infrastructure needs, such as market trends, geopolitical developments, technology maturity, consumers’ demand and risks of climate disasters. The thoroughness of the analysis should not be compromised by resources constraints.