At the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Wednesday 22 January, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, reiterated the comments she had made at the World Economic Forum in Davos on 21 January concerning the guidelines for the future Action Plan on Affordable Energy Prices, which is due to be unveiled on 26 February at the same time as the Clean Industrial Deal.
“We are going to have to invest in the latest generation of clean energy technologies, such as fusion, improved geothermal systems and solid electrolyte batteries”, she said.
“We also need to mobilise more private capital to modernise our electricity grids and storage infrastructure”, she added, revealing that energy infrastructure would be at the heart of the future action plan.
It should be noted that the Commission has already presented a specific action plan for the development of electricity networks in November 2023 (see EUROPE 13543/8; EUROPE 13302/8).
The President has also tasked the new European Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jørgensen, with updating the regulation on the governance of the Energy Union and climate action (see EUROPE 13532/21).
She reiterates the need to “remove any remaining barriers to our energy union [and to] better link our clean, low-carbon energy systems”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)