5.1European Energy Supply Dependence
The evolution of the European gas supply dependence generally reflects the evolution of 3 different elements:
- with the decline of its indigenous conventional production, the EU relies more and more on gas imports to satisfy its demand, especially for the next 10 years.
- the development of indigenous production of renewable gases have an important growth potential like shown in the COP 21 scenarios. This development can fully compensate for the decline of the conventional natural gas production as of 2030 in Distributed Energy scenario.
- between 2030 and 2040, in Distributed Energy and Global Ambition scenarios, the share of gas demand is increasing in transport and industrial sectors as gas is becoming less carbon intensive and therefore replaces more carbon intensive alternatives.
Whilst the EU conventional natural gas production is decreasing, the combined effect of the development of renewable gases and energy efficiency improvement, the overall dependence of the EU on energy imports, and more specifically, gas imports is on a decreasing trend in both COP 21 scenarios. In National Trends, there is limited shift to gas in other sectors and imports remain at a stable level. See Figure 5.2.
Figure 5.1: European energy imports in COP 21 scenarios in 2050.
Figure 5.2: EU indigenous production by scenario.