Council’s TEN-E General Approach lays the ground for future electrified prosperity

SupergridEurope welcomes today’s Energy Council agreement on a revised Trans-European Networks for Energy Regulation (TEN-E). 

Affordable, secure and clean energy will define Europe's prosperity and competitiveness in the coming decades ahead — but this can only be achieved with a genuinely pan-European electricity grid. 

The Council’s General Approach will give Europe the tools to plan and develop this critical  infrastructure for the coming decades.  

SupergridEurope EU Policy Director Donagh Cagney said: "The Council's decision to put a pan-European central scenario at the heart of Europe's grid planning is the right call. 

After years of rising energy prices, supply shocks, and the hard lessons of European energy dependence, we have an unprecedented opportunity to build the infrastructure that will underpin Europe's energy independence for the 21st century. 

Now it is time for the European Parliament to step up, and to push for an ambitious and genuinely pan-European grids planning framework.”

What the Council got right

• A pan-European central scenario remains at the core of grid planning

  The Council’s text ensures that current bottom-up grids planning will be complemented by a top-down pan-European approach. This will help ensure that Europeans can benefit from affordable and secure renewable energy, exactly when and where they need it.  

• Congestion revenues will help fill infrastructure gaps 

  The Council's has preserved the core logic of the original proposal - revenues arising from grid bottlenecks should flow back into fixing those infrastructure gaps. 

• A new 'security, resilience and repairs' project category for interconnectors

  The ability to rapidly repair Europe’s interconnectors following sabotage or attack is a matter of both energy and national security.  

• A positive signal on the inter-TSO compensation mechanism

  In line with recent ACER analysis the Council recognises the limits of the current setup for compensating transmission system operators for cross-border electricity flow costs, and calls for a Commission review. 

Where the Parliament can strengthen ambition 

• The Central Scenario should be adopted via Delegated Act

  The Council wants the central scenario to be adopted via an Implementing Act, which would prevent control to be exercised by the European Parliament. The central scenario will shape hundreds of billions of euros of infrastructure investment across the continent — it requires a degree of parliamentary scrutiny and legal robustness that the delegated act procedure provides.  

• Stronger integration of onshore and offshore grid planning

  Offshore grids will be crucial to Europe’s energy security, and the TEN-E framework could be more tightly aligned with Europe's planning architecture for offshore renewable energy infrastructure.

• Unlock interconnector projects that benefits multiple countries

  The General Approach allows Member States to opt out of cost sharing for interconnector projects, even if they receive 10% or more of estimated benefits. This puts at risks projects with wider European benefits beyond the hosting countries. 

Notes for editors

The European Parliament must now agree its own position on the TEN-E Regulation. Currently this is expected in early autumn.

The Council and Parliament will then negotiate a compromise text. Once agreed, this will enter EU law.

SupergridEurope’s response to the European Commission’s TEN-E proposal. 

European Council’s press release on the European Grids Package (26/06).

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