EU Grids Action Plan

Today, on 28 November 2023, the European Commission published its Grids Action Plan. The plan presents 7 horizontal challenges, and 14 actions for accelerating EU grid development in the coming years. SolarPower Europe has issued the following statement. 

Naomi Chevillard, Head of Regulatory Affairs at SolarPower Europe (she/her), said:

“The Grids Action Plan is an excellent and necessary initiative from the European Commission. We’re glad to see guidance on anticipatory investments, mapping of available grid capacities, and digitalisation of grid connection procedures. This will help solar project developers efficiently locate their projects, and unlock the massive grid queues in the EU. In addition, the promotion of common technical requirements for grid connection will support our EU inverters, that currently have to go through 27 standardisation processes to access EU markets. 

But we need a Union that delivers: guidance must be put into action to accelerate grid connection. The pan-European view of grid hosting capacity must serve as our compass for the monitoring of the Clean Energy Package implementation, including in the NECPs. In addition, the high-level fora on grid investments will support grid infrastructure growth – the renewable industry must be associated to support it. 

However, we are concerned with the absence of concrete, regulatory provisions to support the easy win of growth and integration of flexibility at all voltage levels. Flexibility is immediately available at the consumer’s house, where elements of grid infrastructure need up to ten years to be deployed. Today’s plan falls short of clarifying the EU regulatory framework for storage with regard to taxation or treatment of stored renewable electricity, and risks endangering flexibility growth with its ambiguous regulatory framework.”

Notes

• Flexibility frameworks are a set of measures that provide a price signal to flexibility providers reflecting system stress/needs.