Eurelectric calls for clean electrification-based European Energy Security Strategy

Driven by lessons learnt from the energy crisis, the continued war in Ukraine and the impact of climate change, Europe’s electricity sector association Eurelectric has issued a call for the development of a new European Energy Security Strategy.

According to the association in their study, Redefining Energy Security In the age of electricity, a new strategy is needed for the continent, building upon an integrated definition of energy security with electrification at the fore.

The association in their report cite various factors influencing this need, such as exogenous factors, including geopolitical risks and resilience, and endogenous factors, including the high penetration of renewables that require increased system flexibility, strategic expansion and grid digitalisation.

Specifically, Eurelectric calls for a new and integrated approach to SoS ‘Security of Supply 2.0’, encompassing a broader set of energy policy objectives, in particular ensuring clean and affordable energy supply, adequate network infrastructure and firm and flexible capacities.

Clean electrification, they say, is instrumental to achieving both decarbonisation and security of energy supply objectives, while also contributing to the affordability aspect, a critical issue for all consumers, especially EU industries whose competitiveness is at stake in the transition.

Weaponised energy

Explaining in a press conference during the Munich Security conference, Leonhard Birnbaum, Eurelectric’s President and CEO at E.ON, commented on how, as electricity becomes the key carrier of energy, energy security will become a more complex puzzle.

Said Birnbaum: “We have realised that energy, and especially power sector energy, is weaponised.

“Now we are seeing how directly attacking energy infrastructure is being weaponised against Ukraine.

“Energy security in the wider term, which is more than just security of supply, needs to be a top priority, because one thing is clear: for modern societies to function, access to enough electricity at the right moment in time and under affordable conditions is an absolute prerequisite.”

Eurelectric highlighted the targeted attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as a prime example of the shift towards a need for new strategy.

The association referred to Ukrainian energy company DTEK, who confirmed that their generation and grid assets have been targeted in three waves of deliberate attacks: first on transmission, then on centralised generation – including thermal, hydropower plants and nuclear substations – broadening to renewable wind and solar generation.

More from Eurelectric:
Europe’s economy not electrifying fast enough – Eurelectric
Eurelectric: six technologies to speed up Europe’s grids improvements

The evolving security conundrum

According to Birnbaum, despite ‘keeping the lights on’ amid the war in Ukraine-instigated energy crisis, energy security is now more than ever a challenge.

“It has always been a challenge, but not one that has so many dimensions as we see today. [In the past] we needed enough capacity of pipelines, transmission, power stations and so forth.

“But what we did not need is the layers that [now] come on the top. The capacity issue, the engineering problem, of energy security is still there. But we have [new] problems, because in an increasingly renewable world, when the sun shines and when wind blows, we will not have any scarcity of capacity.

“And on top, we are seeing now that this future energy world is a more connected digital world, which is increasingly under massive cyber-attacks. But … to stay with an analogue system is not a solution. So we have the additional threat of cyber and we also have physical threats.”

To illustrate these threats, Birnbaum and Eurelectric highlighted not only the attacks in Ukraine but also cases of sabotage in the Baltics and cases of energy sector espionage.

In the Baltics, Eurelectric called the 2022 sabotage to the Nord Stream gas pipeline the start.

The association said that, as of the beginning of 2025, critical infrastructure, including electricity interconnectors between the Baltic countries – who recently disconnected from the Russian transmission system – and Finland, had been severed under suspicious circumstances.

Regarding espionage, Eurelectric cited a 2022 case of drones flying over Swedish nuclear power plants, raising security concerns. Counter-measures, the association added, will be needed for the future to stop information leaks and remain in control of power system critical points.

Eurelectric also cited that, between 2020 and 2022, cyberattacks doubled in the energy sector, with 48 successful attacks hitting Europe’s energy infrastructure in 2022 alone.

Said Birnbaum: “Energy security, whilst it has always been a problem, has never been such a tough problem. With the acknowledgement that there are players who will weaponise this complexity against us; it means we need to prepare like we have never prepared before.”

Preparatory recommendations

For the new strategy, Eurelectric emphasises three key policy recommendations in the report:

• Preparedness and assessment of system needs

The association calls for a more integrated approach that streamlines, consolidates and ensures consistency across the different planning tools already included in EU and national laws.

It should consider the entire value chain and possibly all energy vectors (electricity, gases, heat, transport, etc.) to better identify system needs and options for decarbonisation and electrification.

This includes developing new methodologies for improved forecasting and system analysis. The institutional and governance arrangements that support infrastructure planning and end-use sectors will also need to evolve to support efficient market functioning.

• An improved investment framework

A more consistent market-compatible investment framework addressing all system needs should be implemented.

This includes, where deemed necessary, contracting mechanisms for firm and flexible technologies to secure and coordinate timely investments across the value chain and ensure electricity supply, in particular through capacity mechanisms.

Incentives and coordination in network infrastructure investment, adds the report, should be enhanced to ensure that the necessary investments can be made on time.

Such mechanisms would serve as an insurance for the power system and the European economy as a whole.

• Markets and operations framework

Finally, the report recommends that market signals be improved to better reflect physical system needs, whilst enhanced forward markets should offer better hedging opportunities for firm and flexible assets.

Greater consumer participation to provide demand side response should also be encouraged. To do so, the focus should now be on proper and swift implementation of the recent reforms of the Electricity Market Design.

Added Birnbaum: “What we need is we need more flexibility.

“We need better planning across sectors and across the full puzzle.

“But on top, we need a different mindset to prepare for that and not take it for granted that we can always provide energy security.”

Originally published on Enlit World.