Most of the gas consumed in Europe today is imported through pipelines and LNG cargos. The disruption of a supply route can have a significant impact on the infrastructure and its ability to satisfy the demand.
However, depending on the evolution of the different national policies and on the development of the demand and production technologies to reach the European climate and energy targets, the gas system may rely on the main gas supply corridors in different ways. The TYNDP scenarios are meant to reflect those different possible pathways.
This section investigates the additional impact of a supply route disruption during a high demand situation (climatic stress) for all the different scenarios from 2020 until 2040.
The assessment focuses on the disruptions listed in the Union-wide simulation of gas supply and infrastructure scenarios carried out for the risk assessment defined in Article 7, Regulation (EU) 2017/1938 (hereafter SOS Regulation) concerning security of gas supply. Furthermore, those disruption cases expected to show a risk of demand curtailment in the Union-wide simulation are assessed in this section:
- Ukraine route
- Belarus route
- Imports to Baltic states and Finland
- Algerian import pipelines
The assessment is limited to the impact of a supply disruption occurring during high gas demand situations: peak day, a 2-week cold spell and 2-week Dunkelflaute. The SoS Regulation additionally considers disruptions with longer duration as assessed in the Union-wide SoS simulation report1.
The assessment of the supply route disruptions is consistent with the Regulation EU 2017/1938. Therefore, Member States belonging to the concerned risk group as defined in Annex I of the regulation2 are assumed to cooperate to the extent possible to limit the overall impact of the disruption by equally sharing the demand curtailment, if not prevented by infrastructure limitations.
The TYNDP assesses how the EU gas system is resilient to supply route disruptions by investigating whether some infrastructure limitations prevent some countries from being supplied by sufficient quantities of gas. Existing, Low, Advanced and PCI infrastructure levels are assessed.
Disruption Scenarios
View the different disruption scenarios in a new window:
4.2.2 Belarus Disruption
4.2.3 Pipeline imports to the Baltic States and Finland disruption
4.2.4 Algerian pipeline import routes disruption
4.2.5 Conclusion – Supply route disruptions
The Existing gas infrastructure in Europe is resilient to most supply route disruptions (see ENTSOG SoS report: EU-wide simulation of supply and infrastructure disruption scenarios) and TYNDP 2020 further assesses the resilience of the European gas system to those supply disruptions exposing some parts of the EU to demand curtailment.
The assessment confirms that the resilience of the current gas infrastructure has improved since the previous TYNDP 2018 and the publication of the SoS simulation report in 2017.
Most of Europe is protected from a possible risk of demand curtailment in case of any major supply route disruption during high demand situations.
However, for some supply route disruptions, assessed further in this TYNDP, some infrastructure limitations keep on preventing some regions from being fully protected from a risk of demand curtailment. But projects submitted to the TYNDP can provide the necessary additional infrastructure to fully mitigate the situation.
Finally, the assessment shows the resilience of the gas system to a 2-week Dunkelflaute event when the gas system, including indigenous biomethane production or gas storage, can back up the intermittent power generation for a long period of time, therefore ensuring flexibility and security of supply to the electricity system.
More specifically,
- In case of Ukraine transit route disruption, the current gas infrastructure, along with the foreseeable reinforcements, offers alternative import routes from Russian and Caspian region supply (Nordstream 2, Turkstream and TAP) to be able to satisfy its demand and keep supporting Ukraine by maintaining gas exports.
Apart from the countries impacted during the assessment of climatic stress conditions without transit disruption Romania faces a risk of demand curtailment in some scenarios in Existing, Low and PCI infrastructure levels. Advanced-status projects prove efficient in terms of improving security of supply, enabling an efficient cooperation within Europe. To a lesser extent, Poland is impacted by the Ukraine transit disruption as well. - Additionally, results show the benefits of the penetration of renewables gases, especially in Distributed Energy and Global Ambition scenarios, allowing to mitigate the risk of demand curtailment and improve the resilience of the network.
- In case of Belarus transit route disruption, results show that the reduction in the overall import capacity from Belarus impacts Poland facing a higher risk of demand curtailment as a consequence of infrastructure limitations with its neighbouring countries. The commissioning of the interconnection Lithuania-Poland enables an efficient cooperation within Poland and Lithuania reducing the overall exposure of the region to demand curtailment. The use of alternative Russian supply import routes, as well as the use of the other supply sources, together with an efficient cooperation between countries, ensure security of supply in Europe with a higher level of flexibility in the Advanced and PCI infrastructure levels.
- Additionally, results confirm the benefits of the penetration of renewables gases, especially in Distributed Energy and Global Ambition scenarios.
- In case of disruption of imports pipelines to the Baltic states and Finland, penetration of renewables gases (biomethane and power to gas), together with infrastructures foreseeable reinforcements, in Distributed Energy and Global Ambition 2040 scenarios help decrease, or even fully mitigate, the risk of demand curtailment in Finland and Estonia during peak day and 2-week cold spell demand situation.
- Moreover, the connection of the Baltic states and Finland with the main EU gas grid in the Low infrastructure decreases their dependence to Russian gas, allowing an efficient cooperation with neighbouring countries (Latvia and Lithuania).
- The European existing infrastructure is generally resilient to a disruption of all import pipelines from Algeria. The results do not differ much from the results for climatic stress conditions without transit disruption route.