A Change is Coming: How Regulation and Innovation Are Reshaping the European Union's Electricity Markets

Abstract

Based on current policy targets, projections, and expectations, electricity is set to play a central role in the European Union's (EU's) economy. The ambitious goals of decarbonization and energy-efficient actions include decreasing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in 2030 and 95% in 2050 down to below 1990 levels, increasing the renewable energy share to at least 27% of final energy consumption in 2030, and attaining 27% energy savings by 2030 as compared to business- as-usual rates of growth. Correlated electrification, decentralization, and digitalization trends suggest that the share of electricity in final energy consumption can grow from above 30% in 2030 to nearly 40% in 2050. Decentralized generation capacity could account for more than 30% of all generation capacity in 2030 and could easily exceed half of installed generation capacity by 2050. Intelligent inverters can double the distribution grid's capacity to the host photovoltaic systems. Smart meters are scheduled to reach nearly half of the EU's citizens by 2020, whereas Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices (with embedded functions that interact with the grid) could serve the majority of the EU's population by 2030.