Electrification the missing piece in Europe – Eurelectric

Europe’s power sector continues to lead on decarbonisation but its economy is not electrifying fast enough, Eurelectric reports in its Power Barometer 2024.

This new edition finds that while the EU power sector’s emissions have continued their downward trend – in 2023 reaching 50% below the 2008 level – the rate of electrification has been stagnating at least for the past 10 years at a rate around 23%.

This is when electrification in Europe is needed to reach 31-35% by 2030 and to make half of the final energy consumption by 2040.

Meanwhile over the same period, China grew its rate by 7 percentage points.

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“The missing piece between going green and staying competitive is electrifying,” says Eurelectric secretary general, Kristian Ruby, pointing to the “huge potential” of the industrial sectors to electrify further based on the available technologies.

Today, just a third of the energy consumed by European industries is covered by electricity, versus a potential of up to 90%, with only 4% of industrial high emission heating processes being electrified.

Buildings’ electrification is also struggling with heat pumps sales decreasing by 5% in 2023.

Electric vehicles, on the contrary, increased to a total of 9 million units in 2024, but remain far from the targeted at least 30 million units by 2030.

Price volatility a concern

Beyond a lack of power demand, which has seen a 7.5% drop between 2022 and 2023 due to industrial slowdown and relocation elsewhere, the Power Barometer highlights increased price volatility as a concern for the sector.

As of August 2024, Europe has witnessed over 1,000 hours where electricity prices went below zero in at least one EU bidding zone, mostly during solar peaks, with power producers having to pay to supply electricity to the grid. At the same time, parts of Europe witnessed unusually high prices and cross-border spread.

These occurrences, while able to incentivise more storage and flexibility, complicate the business case for additional renewable investments.

‘Zeroing in’ on grids

In this connection, the Power Barometer also comments on the challenges facing DSOs, with the high level of connection requests for renewables as well as from other distributed assets such as heat pumps and EVs.

More grid investment is desperately needed to keep up, with Eurelectric’s data on current trends and future targets for electrification indicating the need for an annual injection of nearly €67 billion (US$74 billion) per year in the region’s distribution grid infrastructure.

However, should anticipatory investments pick up and grid-enhancing technologies be developed, there is potential to cut this price tag by nearly 18% down to €55 billion (US$60.6 billion) per year.

In its concluding recommendations in the Power Barometer 2024 Eurelectric points to the four ‘i’s – implementation, investment, infrastructure and industry – calling for the implementation of the Green Deal and other existing legislation and certainty on investment.

Not least is the need also for the acceleration of electrification with a market-friendly framework.