Europe will need to almost double of net gas peaking capacity by 2040

Baku, Azerbaijan, Oct. 19

By Leman Zeynalova - Trend:

Europe will need to almost double of net gas peaking capacity by 2040, Trend reports referring to the Global Gas Report prepared by Snam, International Gas Union (IGU) and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The report shows that gas pipeline and LNG infrastructure will play a growing role in Europe given declining local production, but there is generally sufficient import capacity today to enable the evolving role of gas.

“Import pipelines only periodically operate at peaks above 80 percent. Meanwhile, LNG regasification capacity utilization was only 28 percent in 2018. The need for additional import infrastructure is likely to be limited to de-bottlenecking specific routes within Europe and adding resilience to further support supply security,” said the report.

A more pressing challenge is the need to establish greater crossborder transmission interconnectivity within Europe to adapt to shifting supply and demand patterns, according to the companies.

“The internal market functions effectively – around 75 percent of gas in the EU is consumed within a liquid market, meaning that gas can be redirected across borders to areas experiencing spikes in demand or shortages in supply. But physical interconnections need further development. More than 40 percent of EU’s LNG regasification capacity cannot be accessed by neighboring countries, limiting the security benefits of importing LNG. If cross-border gas infrastructure were frozen at current levels while remaining contractual and regulatory congestion persists, capacity utilization would reach a maximum constraint in the next 10-20 years.”

The report says that as intermittent renewables take a greater share of Europe’s generation mix, the need for peaking capacity to manage the grid will increase.

“Global gas peaking capacity is expected to rise by 86 percent from 345 GW in 2017 to 640 GW in 2040 as it plays a greater role managing intermittent renewables. Europe’s current gas peaking fleet only consists of around 15 GW. Assuming European gas peaking grows at the IEA’s predicted global average, Europe would need to almost double of net gas peaking capacity by 2040.”

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