In a new study published on Friday 14 February, Eurelectric encourages the creation of a new European strategy for energy security, “focusing on homegrown electrification as the predominant energy vector”.
While the current EU strategy was adopted in 2014, in a context dominated by Russian fossil fuel imports, the Eurelectric study highlights the need to now take into account the high penetration of variable renewable energy sources - requiring particular attention on the deployment of flexibility, as well as the expansion of power grids.
Eurelectric’s Secretary General, Kristian Ruby, told a press conference that ensuring electricity flexibility requires mobilisation throughout the European Union: “We need everyone to ensure flexibility”.
Explaining that in five years’ time, there would be a “tripling of daily flexibility requirements, a doubling of seasonal requirements and a more than 50% increase in weekly requirements”, he argued that “massive capacity additions across all flexibility vectors” will be necessary in order to meet demand, which he said is “one of the key insights of this study”.
According to Eurelectric, this 2.0 strategy should make it possible to “streamline, consolidate and ensure consistency across the different planning tools already included in EU and national laws” and ensure that all energy carriers (electricity, gas, heat, transport) and end-use sectors are taken into account.
The study also calls for a “more consistent market-compatible” investment framework, including contracting mechanisms for both fixed and flexible technologies to ensure and coordinate adequate investment along the value chain.
“We need functioning markets which actually provide us with price signals. We need better planning across sectors (...). But on top, we need a different mindset to prepare for that and not take it for granted that we can actually always provide energy security”, said Leonhard Birnbaum, Eurelectric’s CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors.
The study also highlights the fact that market signals could be improved to better reflect the physical needs of the system. For example, futures markets should offer better hedging opportunities for different assets and greater consumer participation should be encouraged to influence demand response.
In particular, the study notes that “the focus should be on proper and swift implementation of the recent reforms of the electricity market design”, the most recent of which came into force in 2024.
Read the report: https://aeur.eu/f/fiv (Original version in French by Pauline Denys with Nithya Paquiry)