3.4. A single, smart European electricity grid

Electricity networks have to respond to three interrelated challenges to enable a consumer-friendly and increasingly decarbonised electricity system: creating a pan-European market; integrating a massive increase of renewable energy sources; and managing interactions between millions of suppliers and customers (where increasingly households will be both), including owners of electrical vehicles. Future electricity networks will play a key role for the transition to a decarbonised energy system, while providing additional flexibility and cost benefits to the consumers. The overriding goal by 2020 is to transmit and distribute about 35 % Commission Staff Working Document SEC(2009) 1295 accompanying the Communication on "Investing in the Development of Low Carbon Technologies (SET-Plan)" (COM(2009) 519 final). of electricity from dispersed and concentrated renewable energy sources. A strongly integrated research and demonstration effort will support the development of new components, technologies, and procedures which will respond to the particularities of both the transmission and distribution side of the grid, as well as flexible energy storage. All options to successfully balance energy supply and demand must be considered to minimise emissions and costs. New smart energy grid technologies, back-up and balancing technologies enabling higher flexibility and efficiency, including conventional power plants, new grid components to improve the transmission capacity and quality as well as the reliability of grids have to be developed. New power systems technologies and a bi-directional digital communication infrastructure must be researched and integrated into the electricity grid as well as used to establish smart interactions with other energy grids. This will contribute to better planning, monitoring, control and secure operation of networks, including standardisation issues, in normal and emergency conditions as well as to managing the interactions between suppliers and customers and to transporting, managing and trading energy flow. For the deployment of future infrastructure, indicators and cost benefit analysis should take into account energy system-wide considerations. In addition, synergies between smart grids and telecommunication networks will be maximised in order to avoid duplication of investments, to increase safety and to accelerate the take up of smart energy services. Novel energy storage means (including both batteries and large scale storage means such as power-to-gas) and vehicle systems will provide the required flexibility between production and demand. Improved ICT technologies will further increase the flexibility of electricity demand by providing customers (industrial, commercial and residential) with the necessary automation tools. Security, reliability and privacy are important issues here as well. New planning, market and regulatory designs need to drive the overall efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the electricity supply chain and interoperability of infrastructures as well as the emergence of an open and competitive market for smart energy grid technologies, products and services. Large-scale demonstration projects are needed to test and validate solutions and assess the benefits for the system and for individual stakeholders, before deploying them across Europe. This should be accompanied by research to understand how consumers and businesses react to economic incentives, behavioural changes, information services and other innovative opportunities provided by smart grids.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.