The urgent enhancement of energy efficiency and the increase of renewables in the energy mix result in new needs for the electricity systems by notably requiring long-distance transport and storage capacity to respond to the high volatility of renewable power generation. New infrastructure is consequently a condition of the transition towards the low carbon power sector.

Priority infrastructure plans aim at connecting isolated countries to the European energy markets, by establishing needed cross-border interconnections and integrating at the same time renewable energy into the network.

The European Commission identified four ”electricity highways” and three priority corridors in the gas sector:

• An offshore grid in the North Sea with connection to Northern and Central Europe to transport power produced by offshore wind parks to consumers in the big cities and to store power in the hydro-electric power plants in the Alps and the Nordic countries.
• Interconnections in South Western Europe to transport power generated from wind, solar, hydro to the rest of the continent, including Spain-France interconnections.
• Connections in Central Eastern und South Eastern Europe, strengthening the regional network.
• Integration of the Baltic Energy Market into the European market.
• Southern Corridor to deliver gas directly from the Caspian Sea to Europe to diversify gas sources.
• Baltic Energy Market Integration and connection to Central and South East Europe
• North-South corridor in Western Europe to remove internal bottlenecks.

The EC communication seemingly allows an uneasy combination of fossil fuels with renewable energy, which would consist in a sustainable energy system only if CCS was deployed. The strategy plans transport infrastructure for CO2 after CCS technology should become commercially viable around 2020. But as energy commissioner Oettinger said at the Friends of Europe summit on November 18th, ”2020 is immediate and we’ve got to think beyond that, regarding energy infrastructure.” It means CO2 transport infrastructure should start being planned to enable CCS development around Europe. The fact that potential CO2 storage sites are not evenly distributed across Europe will thus require regional co-ordination of such plans. The EC will therefore prepare a public European CO2 Storage Atlas to help national authorities plan future CO2 infrastructure.

The overall infrastructure project will require an overall estimated investment of €200bn in power grids and gas pipelines by 2020, amongst which only half will be provided by the private sector, leaving a huge financial gap to be filled by public support.

Mr Oettinger proposes to boost EU energy infrastructure spending immediately by delivering  €800mn annually over the five next years  and will in 2012 announce the first key ”projects of European interest.”