​What should the electricity grid look like in 2040 to create maximum value for Europeans, ensure continuous access to electricity throughout Europe and deliver on the climate agenda? What would be the cost of not having the right grid by 2040? ​

These questions are at the heart of the six Regional Investment Plans and of the first pan-European report Europe Power System 2040: completing the map, released on 2 February. 

The reports, out for public consultation until  28 February, are not giving all the answers but provide quantitative assessments and qualitative analysis from the transmission system operators' on the hardware, software and regulatory evolutions needed by 2040. "More short term and long term analysis are ongoing at ENTSO-E, with our membership and stakeholders, but today's reports have the strong advantage of for the first time attempting to put numbers on what would be the consequences of not upgrading our system", points out Laurent Schmitt. 

Indeed Europe Power System 2040: completing the map analyses the costs -financial but also environmental and in terms of electricity supply- of not investing in the power networks. The benefits for Europeans of doing the right investments in the right places, with the right technologies and regulations, far outweigh the necessary efforts which will need to be mobilised in the next decades for the system's update. 

The released reports represent the second of three stages of the Ten-Year Network Development Plan 2018 which is the master plan for grid development in Europe. The TYNDPs serve as basis for the European Project of Common Interest process. The first stage of the TYNDP2018 was the release of the joint ENTSOs' (gas & electricity) scenarios last year. These co-created scenarios are the foundations on which both the regional and pan-European reports are built. The final TYNDP2018, including a cost benefit analysis of about 200 transmission and storage projects, will be released later this year.   

"Already today about one third of the power generation mix is provided through variable renewables. Photovoltaics and wind onshore have introduced new integration challenges. The power networks that were built in Europe since the early days of electricity have to adapt- meaning also be augmented as well as digitalised", commented Laurent Schmitt, Secretary General of ENTSO-E. 

All members of the public are invited to participate in the consultation organised until 28 February. A public webinar will also take place half way through the consultation. More information will be provided on this on the ENTSO-E website.