The European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), Europacable, representing Europe’s leading wire and cable producers and T&D Europe, representing Europe’s grid technology providers, are working together to ensure the timely build-out of Europe’s transmission grids for the energy transition.
In the recent EU Action Plan for Grids released by the European Commission last November, the EU outlined a series of concrete actions to ensure the readiness of the electricity grids to meet energy targets and ensure they will be rolled out further and faster.
In particular, Action 13 of the Action Plan called upon ENTSO-E to collaborate with technology providers “to develop common technology specifications and improve visibility of grid project pipelines, to facilitate investments in manufacturing capacity and secure supply chains”.
In response, ENTSO-E, Europacable and T&D Europe have now set out to implement Action 13 efficiently and transparently to realise Europe’s decarbonisation ambitions. This will be done by increasing efficiency, speeding up grid deployment and reducing redundancies in the planning and execution of high-voltage land and subsea grid projects in the interest of the European consumers, also by using the opportunities existing digitalisation solutions offer today.
“Strong and efficient supply chains are one of the main challenges to deliver the electricity transmission infrastructure that Europe needs for our energy transition,” said Damian Cortinas, Chair of the ENTSO-E Board. “We believe this transition should not only bring carbon neutrality but also contribute to European competitiveness and energy security. Europe today has world-class cable manufacturers and ENTSO-E welcomes this new cooperation with Europacable and T&D Europe in line with the European Grid Action Plan, as we aim to ensure timely delivery of critical components, increase efficiency, and lower the cost of our transmission infrastructure to the benefit of all European electricity consumers.”
“The bold investment announcements Europacable members made already in 2023 are proof of our industry’s commitment to deliver the cables Europe needs,” added Marcello Del Brenna, Chair of the Europacable Energy Infrastructure Team and Member of the Executive Board. “Our investments will secure our global technology leadership, create lasting jobs and foster European growth. Viable investment conditions, clear demand visibility and fair market conditions are prerequisites for further expansion and will safeguard the competitiveness of EU manufacturing.”
“Europe’s grid technology sector is a vital European and national interest,” stated Jochen Kreusel, President of T&D Europe. “We are committed to increasing manufacturing capacity in Europe to meet growing demand in alignment with adequate and tangible political, financial and regulatory support. Based on clear commitments from regulators and network operators together with a stable regulatory framework the industry will be able to make the business case with a competitive return on equity to add capacity, organise its supply chain and recruit and develop the necessary skills. European manufacturers are investing in supply chains to ensure that the equipment required by system operators for the energy transition can be delivered on time, in the needed volumes and without compromise quality and reliability. This process will keep contributing to the European digital and clean energy transitions, economic growth, and jobs creation.”
According to ENTSO-E’s press statement, the aim is to take concrete measures to further harmonise grid project development and deployment practices throughout Europe, including short-term solutions that will deliver tangible benefits, as well as longer-term solutions such as technical standardisation and network codes.
The parties’ objective is to identify best practices and to introduce indicators of their expected impact to speed up grid deployment to allow for an appropriate prioritisation of actions.