Making the most of Europe's grids

Large scale electrification of the energy system coupled with deployment of renewables will be required to meet Europe’s aim of being climate-neutral by 2050. These new connections will require a significant expansion of the existing power grid to transfer wind and solar power from isolated places to load centres as well as from low price to high price zones with new interconnectors, while ensuring security of supply. A strong reinforcement of power distribution networks will also be required to allow new customers to connect (electric vehicle charging points, data centres…) and to collect power from wind and solar farms. This paper identifies grid optimisation technologies that with the right regulatory frameworks in place could become widely deployed and immediately maximise the use of current and future transmission capacity.