ACER Assesses The Consistency Of National And European Gas Network Plans And Their Contribution To Energy Transition

ACER publishes an Opinion reviewing the most recently published national gas Network Development Plans (NDPs) to assess their consistency with the EU Ten-Year Network Development Plan (EU TYNDP).

ACER’s review finds that:

• the methodology used for NDPs has not significantly changed during the last two years.
• currently there is limited coverage of energy transitions issues in gas NDPs.
• 89% of the NDPs are gas-specific (and do not provide a cross-sectoral view of gas and electricity network planning).

ACER and the energy National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) support:

• gas NDPs focusing more on green and low-carbon gases.
• evolving towards integrated planning with electricity in order to better align network planning with energy transition goals.

The review contains several recommendations on how to improve the consistency of future NDPs with the EU TYNDP.