Lift the Barriers: The Path to Affordable and Clean Electricity Lies in Opening the Borders
Europe’s transition to renewable energy is accelerating, and the infrastructure must keep pace. Power grids play a key role in this area, with cross-border interconnectors—or cross-border power links—playing a particularly important role.
Why do we need interconnectors?
Expanded grid interconnections between countries (interconnectors) will be a fundamental building block of a low-cost and clean energy system.
The transition to electricity in Europe is accelerating. However, the transition to a new energy system is not just about building more solar panels and wind turbines. A properly built grid infrastructure and the way it is managed will determine whether and how Europe achieves its energy goals and how cost-effective this process will be cost-effective.
Interconnectors—cross-border high-voltage cables linking national power grids—and common market rules together create an integrated European electricity market. This enables the free flow of electricity across the continent based on supply and demand dynamics and in response to price signals.
The European power grid is the largest interconnected grid in the world, with more than 400 interconnectors linking nearly 600 million people. It is operated, developed, and planned by European transmission system(TSOs). ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity) brings together 39 European transmission system operators who coordinate the operation and development of the interconnected power system.
The Role of Intektonectors
The importance of interconnectors for achieving benefits in the areas of electricity supply security, maintaining low costs, and supporting a cost-effective, clean energy system is supported by a number of studies and models. Some of these include the Paris Agreement-compatible (PAC), developed by the Climate Action Network (CAN-E) and the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), and the study New Generation by Ember on the lowest-cost decarbonization of the power system, and our own study on the needs of the .
Integration and Optimization of Renewable Energy Sources
Because the interconnection allows electricity to be transmitted across borders in a matter of minutes, it creates a more flexible system that can balance out geographic variations in wind and solar power generation and minimize fluctuations in output and supply constraints. This will be essential for cost-effective integration of the variable output of wind and solar power. By offering more options for using this electricity through cross-border exchange, it can reduce grid constraints on cheap and clean energy by half.
Better connectivity across Europe also makes it possible to take advantage of the optimal locations for wind and solar power plants, thereby unlocking greater potential of renewable energy sources and increasing the efficiency of their generation. This reduces the costs and capacity required for decarbonization.
The interconnection may also spur a more ambitious rollout of renewable energy sources by giving investors the confidence to build more units , knowing that they will be able to sell their output to both domestic and foreign markets.
System Efficiency
Interconnection in the creation of a European electricity market optimizes the use of existing assets across the continent, reduces the cost of electricity supply, and reduces price volatility in the electricity market. It also increases price competitiveness, as consumers have access to cheaper and cleaner electricity from neighboring countries.
Through more efficient use of clean electricity generation, appropriate investments in the grid enable a reduction in emissions. An ENTSO-E study estimates that this could result in annual savings of 14 Mt of CO2 between 2025 and 2030 (equivalent to Lithuania’s annual emissions in 2021) and 31 Mt of CO2 annually between 2030 and 2040 (equivalent to Slovakia’s annual emissions in 2021).
Reliability Without Gas
Cross-border trade in lower-cost electricity from renewable sources helps provide an alternative source of flexibility, a role currently filled in many countries by gas-fired power generation. This will enable a gradual reduction in gas consumption without compromising the reliability of the electricity supply and will reduce Europe’s vulnerability to fluctuating gas prices and geopolitical risks.
Cross-border power flows will help ensure the reliability of supply in a future clean energy system dominated by renewable energy sources, and will keep the lights on even when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining. Weather events that would simultaneously affect all of Europe occur only very rarely, which highlights the importance of interconnections for mitigating regional or national demand peaks by importing electricity from neighboring countries, whose wind and solar generation is not affected by weather conditions.
Safety, Resilience, and Solidarity
The integrated European electricity system facilitates coordination and cooperation among member states. Electricity exchange is also a key element for maintaining the security of electricity supply in Europe, as it ensures system balance in the event of a geographical mismatch between supply and demand. It also allows countries to assist one another in critical situations. For example, electricity imports have proven to be crucial for France in 2022, when nuclear and hydroelectric power generation was at record lows.