Europe’s electricity industry has warned that unprecedented investments are needed to upgrade ageing electricity grids, or the European Union will fail to meet its clean energy targets.
“We want to transform the entire energy system at record speed, replace fossil fuels – oil and gas – with electricity. So we add loads of new generation capacity to the grid, we add electric cars, heat pumps,” Eurelectric secretary general Kristian Ruby said. Much of that is expected to come from private sources or be paid for through grid tariffs. Eurelectric said public funding should target upgrading grids quickly, over other longer-term infrastructure like hydrogen projects that would launch in the 2030s.