Last week the European Commission published its Electrification Action Plan.
There's a lot to welcome, and the framing is right. To me the most important thing is that the action plan steps away from the technology neutrality approach favoured by policy makers. It defines electrification as the destination, and names the key technologies, the specific barriers and introduces targeted measures.
For most of the sectors that keep Europe running, electrification is the majority answer to energy security, protection against price spikes, decarbonisation and, in many cases, affordability concerns.
The plan sets a direction: lift electrification from 23% of energy use to a target of 46% by 2040. But it’s the practical measures that are more important to me.
It's good to see the Commission headline Making Electricity Cheaper and proposing key measures on 1) reforming taxes added to electricity, 2) measures to improve the efficiency of grid use and build and 3) supercharging flexibility of all types, including demand-side flexibility. This is the right place to start because around half of the average household electricity bill goes on taxes, levies and network charges, which are defined by policy choices. At RAP we have been making the case for Making Electricity Cheaper for two years, because the prices of electricity define the economics of electrification – on which unstalling electrification across Europe lives or dies. We set out these three and five other priority actions, in Making electricity cheaper.
On flexibility, the Plan outlines some very strong measures for electric vehicle charging. Electric vehicles are ‘batteries on wheels’ that can, by nature, separate the time at which they take electricity from the grid from the time the electricity (mobility) service is used. This makes them a natural starting point. But I’d like to have seen more thinking about making other new electrified loads ‘flexible as standard’ and ensuring that shifting energy use is easy and safe. This is a topic that RAP cares deeply about and, this month we have developed two separate pieces of thinking: first a schematic that identifies how ‘dynamic’ tariffs and offers to households are evolving to be more inclusive and second on how ‘flexible connection agreements’ for large users let clean projects connect sooner.
The plan's interest in a clean heat market mechanism is welcome too. It's a smart instrument: it obliges heating manufacturers to grow the clean share of what they sell, then lets them find the cheapest route there. The UK introduced its Clean Heat Market Mechanism in 2025, and our new case study draws out the early lessons for Europe on the design choices.
Europe has chosen the direction. This Action Plan is a good EU response to a EU (and wider European) problem, it mobilises the tools that the Europe Union has, including tax, network regulation and market mechanisms to meet the challenge.
But, you guessed it, this task can’t be achieved only by EU instruments. There is far more potential to unstall electrification at national level. And to Make Electricity Cheaper.
