How we model demand
Our demand modelling captures both established consumption patterns and the growing influence of behind-the-meter solar and battery installations.
Data sources and forecasting method
Backtest: Our model uses historical demand data sourced from ENTSO-E, EirGrid, and Elexon.
Forecast: We build a 15-minute demand shape based on historical demand seasonality patterns, scaled to align with annual consumption projections:
- Continental Europe: We use demand data from ENTSO-E’s ERAA 2024 (short to medium-term) and TYNDP 2024 (long-term), except where a national source is better: Terna for Italy’s zones, PSE for Poland, ERAA 2025 for Spain, and a Modo Energy projection for Portugal. From the total annual demand numbers, we exclude the corresponding demand from batteries and pumped storage since these are obtained implicitly when modelling storage
- Great Britain: The forecast starts from the Holistic Transition pathway in the National Energy System Operator’s (NESO) Future Energy Scenarios (FES) 2025, with three adjustments described below.
Great Britain demand follows an adjusted Holistic Transition pathway
The GB annual demand forecast starts from NESO’s FES 2025 Holistic Transition pathway. Three adjustments are applied before that annual total is shaped into a half-hourly profile.
- Waste: FES waste and waste CHP generation is removed from demand, and those plants are removed from the supply stack. Leaving waste on both sides would count the same electricity twice.
- Residual demand: Residual demand is everything other than heat pumps, electric vehicles and electrolysis. From 2027, it grows at 80% of the FES rate. Data centres are part of residual demand and are not modelled separately.
- Electrolysis: After 2026, growth in grid-connected electrolysis is half the growth in the FES pathway. Electrolysis demand is 44 TWh in 2050.
Heat-pump demand and electric-vehicle demand, including vehicle-to-grid, stay on the FES pathway. Demand through 2026 is the FES level with waste removed.
Annual GB demand is 274 TWh in 2026, 315 TWh in 2030, 478 TWh in 2040, and 582 TWh in 2050.
Germany demand grows more slowly than the published pathway
For Germany, we do not take the ERAA and TYNDP pathway as published. It assumes faster electrification than recent outturn supports, so we scale it down:
- Residual demand grows more slowly. We keep 80% of the year-on-year growth the pathway assumes from 2027. Residual demand includes data centres
- Electrolyser demand also grows more slowly. We add only half of the increase the pathway applies after 2026
We hold demand at the published level through 2026, so the adjustments affect the forecast from 2027 onward. GB demand has its own adjustments, described in the Great Britain section.
Gross versus net demand
To reflect the impact of behind-the-meter assets, we distinguish between two types of demand:
- Net demand
- The metered demand seen by individual TSOs
- Gross (total) demand
- In addition to net demand, this includes behind-the-meter generation - for example at CHP plants and from residential sources like rooftop solar
Modelling gross demand
We are careful when modelling gross demand patterns to first adjust the shape of the demand. This is done by supplementing net demand shape with behind-the-meter sources such as rooftop solar, before scaling the overall demand values.