The European Association of the Electricity
Transmission and Distribution Equipment
and Services Industry
EU Action Plan for the Grids:
Grid technology perspective
T&D Europe recommendations
May 2024
T&D Europe welcomes the release of the Communication “Grids, the missing link - An EU Action
Plan for Grids”, which brings grids front and centre of the EU agenda. The Action Plan is the
political recognition of the crucial importance of grids and the different stakeholders supporting
it. As technology providers we are committed to supporting grid operators in developing,
reinforcing, digitalising, greening and upgrading Europe’s electricity networks and making them
more flexible and resilient.
Energy policy, geopolitics, and industrial policy
Grids are the crucial enablers of everyday life. Modern, digital, and flexible grids connect electricity
producers and consumers and allow prosumers to provide flexibility. The Action Plan comes in the
midst of an increasingly severe climate crisis, combined with growing geopolitical tensions. In
addition, the EU’s grid infrastructure is aging and requires not only further development, but also
reinforcement and modernisation. Europe now must strengthen its resilience against natural
disasters and external dependencies. Power grids are a key priority in achieving this, offering
resilience, reliability, flexibility, and security of supply.
In parallel, Europe is facing global competition for leadership in many strategic economic sectors.
Commission President Von der Leyen emphasised at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting
in 2024 that the future competitiveness of Europe depends on the success of key net-zero
industries, which have a global presence and represent a competitive industrial base in Europe’s
economy. The Net-Zero Industry Act rightly identifies Europe’s grid technology sector as a strategic
net-zero industry supporting one of its key critical infrastructures.
The grid technology sector is an essential player in delivering on the European Green Deal. Europe’s
electricity system is the world’s largest interconnected and synchronous grid of its kind, with more
Public
Grid technology perspective
T&D Europe recommendations
than 400 inter-connectors linking nearly 600 million citizens. It is operated, developed, and planned
by Europe’s transmission and distribution system operators. Europe is also home to a world-leading
grid technology sector, providing modern, digital, and innovative solutions for a future energy
system based on an electricity backbone. The strength of the sector lies in the combination of
multinational corporations and specialised SMEs. Together they form a strong industrial base in
Europe, which needs to be preserved and strengthened.
Our commitment
T&D Europe and its members are committed to support the implementation of the Action Plan. In
particular, we will continue working closely together with the Commission, TSOs and DSOs to
promote uptake of smart grid, network efficiency, and innovative technologies and to facilitate
investments in manufacturing capacity and secure supply chains:
• Contribute to TSOs and DSOs short-medium-and-long term coordinated power system
planning with the aim of accelerating the build-out of critical infrastructure.
• Promote and support the commitments underlying the Offshore Network Development Plans
(ONDPs) and of the 2026 update of the Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP).
• Collaborate with other European technology providers and system operators to explore the
streamlining and simplification of tendering processes and identify possible common practices
and functional specifications.
• Increase manufacturing capacity in Europe to meet growing demand in alignment with
adequate and tangible political, financial, and regulatory support.
• Leverage the High-Level Forum for European Standardisation, through the Clean Electricity
System alliance, to deliver with CEN and CENELEC on the action 13 of the Action Plan to ensure
consistency across Europe.
• Continue to support the implementation of the EU Network Codes, including through the
development of state-of-the-art technology, or through the development of standardised and
harmonised cybersecurity procurement specifications for TSOs and DSOs.
• Contribute to the update of the ENTSO-E Technopedia, particularly on the technology readiness
levels of grid technologies.
• Collaborate with EU stakeholders in improving skilling curricula at different school levels to
increase qualified workforce in grid technologies, as well as in preparing reskilling workforces
programs for different industries, namely for those that will be strongly impacted by greener
and digital energy transition actions.
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• Support the creation of a strategic forum to discuss ways in which the EU and national
governments can strengthen the European electricity networks and the industry that supports
them. This support could start with the Clean Transition Dialogue on Green Deal Infrastructure.
Our key recommendations
The Action Plan is an important milestone. It can contribute to the necessary development of
Europe’s electricity grids. However, the Action Plan does not cover all the needs of the grid
technology industry. T&D Europe therefore reiterates its previous recommendations and asks
policymakers to take on board the following elements:
1. Europe’s grid technology sector is a vital European and national interest
We call on the European Parliament, Governments, and the European Commission to qualify
support for Europe’s grid technology sector as a vital European and national interest. This should
notably emerge as a key tangible and practical outcome of the Net Zero Industry Act. Europe
needs to have a strong industrial base that can supply and support the electricity system as a critical
infrastructure. It should thus take the right measures to enable the sector to continue to operate,
deliver, innovate for a secure, reliable, flexible, and resilient electricity network. This also requires
policymakers to ensure that the ambitions and the pace of the transition is in line with Europe’s
industrial manufacturing and software development capacities to avoid the creation of new,
undesirable external dependencies. Europe needs to support Europe-based manufactures and
software developers in strengthening the domestic production of strategic grid technologies.
2. Provide a clear long-term commitment
Network development plans should be clearly aligned with the National Energy and Climate Plans
for all voltage levels and accompanied by industrial plans, specifying the demand from network
operators for grid technology. This would enable the industry to make the business case with a
competitive return on equity to add capacity, to organise its supply chain and to recruit and develop
the necessary skills.
National Governments and Regulatory Authorities should define and develop ambitious
investment plans to tackle the energy transition in a harmonised manner.It is paramount to move
Europe’s 2050 target from ambition to political and financial commitment. Planning needs to be
backed by reliable commitment of governments, regulators (enabling their system operators to act
on targets notably through long term framework agreements when relevant) and customers (right
framework to make financial commitments). Ambition alone is not enough. As one example,
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regulatory frameworks enabling and even incentivising anticipatory investments will need to be
based on coordinated and holistic, long term network development plans.
3. Transmission and distribution grids are equally important
The implementation of the Grid Action Plan needs to address all voltage levels.
The transmission grid and cross border interconnections will play a crucial role in Europe’s energy
transition and security of supply in the growing renewable generation reality. The development,
reinforcement and modernisation of Europe’s transmission grids will be critical to integrating large
volumes of variable renewables over the coming years. In parallel, the development of cross border
interconnections should remain a priority across Europe enabling the integration of regional energy
systems and providing reliability, resilience, flexibility, and security of supply. The achievement of
the electricity interconnection target of at least 15% should also remain a priority. With 93 GW of
cross-border transmission capacity currently in Europe, the EU Action Plan for Grids targets an
additional 23 GW being incorporated by 2025, and a further 64 GW by 2030.
With the consumer and prosumer in the centre of the energy transition, distribution grids have an
essential role to play in the future energy system, connecting large amounts of distributed energy
resources and new flexible loads. In the foreseeable future, more and more renewable and
distributed power will be produced, mainly in rural areas and on all voltage levels. 70% of
renewables such as solar and wind, will be connected to the distribution network. In contrast to
this, a major part of the new consumers (electric mobility, heat pumps) will push into the grids
primarily in urban areas and on the lower voltage levels. With regard to their electrical power
output, rural distribution systems will mainly serve as “sources” of electric energy, whereas urban
distribution systems will serve as “sinks” that absorb the electricity generated because the density
of connections and consumers in urban areas is significantly higher than in rural areas.
4. Digitalisation and cybersecurity are a must
As already highlighted in the Action Plan to Digitalise the Energy Sector, Europe needs to increase
the digitalisation of the entire European electricity system to ensure 1) the acceleration of Europe’s
energy transition; 2) the optimisation of the operation of our power system and reduce pressure
on the supply chain; and 3) the optimisation of human resources in order to alleviate the pressure
on skills.
We need the help of digital technologies at various stages within the transition to a clean electricity
system: to plan the most efficient power system, to forecast its needs in terms of supply and
demand, and to monitor operations in real time so as to best react to unforeseen circumstances. It
is vital for system operators to invest in the cutting-edge digital technologies that maximise the
efficiency of all available solutions.
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Together with the Action Plan for the Digitalisation of the Energy Sector, the Grid Action Plan and
the recently revised Electricity Market Design, must coherently promote an increase in investments
in digital electricity infrastructure.
In parallel, cybersecurity must remain a transversal top priority. Due to factors such as the
convergence of operational technology and information technology, the proliferation of Internet
of Things devices and the digitalisation of business models (including the increased use of cloud
services), the cyberattack surface for malicious actors to exploit is expanding. And with the
increasing interconnectivity, a cyberattack in one country can quickly spread and affect multiple
electricity systems. A continued focus on cybersecurity and cyber resilience is essential as it has an
immediate impact on the business processes of Europe’s network operators.
5. Make the most of existing capacities
The Action Plan also needs to open the debate on how Europe can make the most of available
industrial capacities. Here, well-planned standardisation is paramount to allow economies of scale
and drive competitiveness and innovation in parallel. Manufacturers face almost as many special
design requests as there are projects. This strains both component supply chains and engineering
capacities, while also increasing project time and adding costs. Especially in the evolving area of
HVDC, common technical specifications, standardisation and tenders limited to functional
specifications are necessary to achieve economies of scale, and to reduce the squeeze on
manufacturers’ engineering capacities and reduce project cycle time. A good example are the
standardised long term framework agreements applied through the TenneT 2 GW program. At the
same time, the Europe-based manufacturers and software developers must be enabled to continue
leveraging their own global supply chains and free trade.
6. Recognise sustainability
Europe-based manufacturers are following Europe’s leadership in driving sustainability. Europe
needs to ensure that sustainability rules do not become an additional burden for industry that
undermines its global competitiveness. These sustainability efforts need to be recognised as part
of procurement processes. Therefore, regulation should incentivise or even prescribe sustainable
asset acquisition and formation where reasonable and not solely favour the most cost-efficient (or
rather cheapest) option. Structured life cycle evaluations could be incorporated into procurement
processes to ensure that project developers can make data-based decisions when purchasing
assets based on their sustainability characteristics.
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Grid technology perspective
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7. Ensure regulatory coherence
The massive challenge to build and expand Europe’s electricity network requires industry to deliver
at speed and scale. The swift implementation, application and enforcement of existing EU
legislation is crucial. At the same time, for manufacturing it is essential that the requirements and
specifications of products and solutions do not change in a way that requires re-design or re-
formulation. For example, the revision of the Ecodesign regulation on transformers should maintain
the current efficiency requirements and refrain from adding criteria that would reduce Europe’s
production capacity. Also, the EU should reconsider a blanket restriction of all PFAS in favour of a
more differentiated regulation that takes into account the specific risks, availability of substitute
materials and benefits of different PFAS substances and uses. Many PFAS substances are essential
to guarantee electrical safety and performance of the equipment guaranteeing electricity supply
across Europe. Moreover, EU network codes should refer to recognised standards without
deviations. Member States should implement the EU network codes without the inclusion of
amended or additional requirements.
8. Establish a Commission-led Steering Committee
To ensure that all grid stakeholders deliver on the Action Plan it is important that there is a
dedicated organisational framework in the Commission to drive the work over the coming 18
months. As the Action Plan goes well beyond energy policy, we believe the work needs to be
overseen by a Steering Committee, involving senior representatives of the relevant Directorate-
General(s) responsible for this Plan, including DG ENER, DG GROW, DG CNECT and DG TRADE. The
Steering Committee will be able to establish and review with all relevant grid stakeholders a clear
workplan with a timetable of the deliverables needed to achieve completion of the main actions
from the Grids Action Plan. The established Clean Transition Dialogue on Green Deal Infrastructure
could become the strategic forum, in which policymakers and stakeholders discuss grid issues and
track progress.
For more information:
Diederik Peereboom
[email protected]
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T&D
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