Assessing the role of flexibility technologies to cover inflexible load variations in the context of the 2040 Climate Target Plan

This report assesses the provision of flexibility in the European power system in the context of the EU 2040 climate target. It analyses system flexibility requirements in 2025, 2030, 2040, and 2050, whereby flexibility is defined as the power system’s ability to manage variability in residual load, focusing on how dispatchable generation, storage, demand-side technologies and sector coupling contribute to balancing the power system across daily, weekly, monthly and yearly timescales. The observed flexibility requirements are expected to increase substantially over time, with daily needs rising fivefold by 2050 compared to 2025, mainly due to solar PV. Weekly and monthly needs roughly triple due to wind variability, and yearly needs double as seasonal balancing requirements grow. Under the assumed deployment levels and operational assumptions, we find that demandside flexibility, mainly electric vehicles but also industrial flexibility, delivers significantly increasing system benefits. Stationary batteries will further provide significant short-term flexibility means, whereas interconnectors help out in the longer term. While the relative role of generation technologies is decreasing, they remain important in keeping the system balanced. The most important of these are pumped hydro storage in the short-term and gas plants in the long term. A flexibility provision ladder illustrates that the way these technologies provide flexibility varies with the magnitude and timescale of the system’s needs.

TERÇA Gonçalo;  KOOLEN Derck;  MILETIC Marija;  FINCK Rafael; 

2026-07-24

Publications Office of the European Union

JRC144042

978-92-68-42120-8 (online),   

1831-9424 (online),   

EUR 40792,    OP KJ-01-26-317-EN-N (online),   

https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC144042,   

10.2760/6856407 (online),