EU Grid Action Plan COM2023-757

EU Action Plan for Grids — “Grids, the missing link” — COM/2023/757, Communication from the European Commission to the European Parliament, Council, EESC and Committee of the Regions. Adopted 28 November 2023. Followed by the European Grids Package (COM/2025/1005) in December 2025.

Summary

A non-binding Commission Communication presenting a 14-point action plan to make Europe’s electricity grids “stronger, more interconnected, more digitalised and cyber-resilient”. The Commission states that, while EU legislation already covers rules relevant for DSOs, with this plan it promotes “for the first time” action targeted to distribution networks. The measures “focus on implementation of the agreed legal framework”; most are addressed to named bodies (ENTSO-E, EU DSO Entity, ACER, NRAs, Member States) as things they “should” do, alongside a smaller set of Commission commitments (“will”).

The Commission identifies seven horizontal challenges (PCIs, long-term planning, regulatory framework, better use of existing grids, finance, permitting, supply chains); Annex I groups the 14 actions under six category headings. The plan preceded the 2025 European Grids Package (Source - European Grids Package COM2025-1005); the wiki’s own reading is that the Package implements or supersedes several of its actions (see Legislative outcomes, which is wiki-derived, not stated in the Communication).

Scale and investment need

Comparison: US estimates a need to expand transmission by 60% by 2030; China’s State Grid announced CNY 1,020 bn (EUR 132 bn) in power grids in 2022-23; IEA assesses a need for over 80 million km of grids worldwide by 2040 and estimates around 1,500 GW of advanced renewable projects waiting in grid connection queues.

Key diagnoses

• Permit waiting time for grid reinforcements: 4-10 years (8-10 years for high voltages)
• Connection backlogs escalating: several thousand new requests per month for a single medium-size DSO
• Equipment delivery: cost overruns from inflation and rising interest rates; “waiting times for new products can reach 2032”
• Insufficient long-term visibility of network needs, in particular at DSO level
• Tariff structures focused on CAPEX under-incentivise smart-grid and efficiency technologies; OPEX compensation does not reflect rising digitalisation, data processing or flexibility procurement costs
• Around 1,500 GW of advanced renewable projects waiting in grid connection queues (IEA, global)

The 14 actions (Annex I)

Annex I gives a timeline per action; the timing stated there is shown in brackets.

Accelerating PCIs and developing new projects (Actions 1-3)

• Action 1 (from 2024): Commission, Member States and TSOs to strengthen support to PCI and PMI preparation, faster implementation and funding. Includes reinforced monitoring via the High-Level Groups (annual ministerial meetings) and a Commission assessment of future public funding needs for T and D infrastructure, including storage, hydrogen and CO2.
• Action 2 (from Q1 2024): ENTSO-E to enhance top-down planning towards 2050, integrating offshore and onshore system needs and further considering hydrogen; NRAs should ensure system operators assess flexibility needs, including storage, when planning transmission.
• Action 3 (mid-2024): EU DSO Entity to support DSO grid planning by mapping the existence and characteristics of distribution development plans; by mid-2024 to explore case studies and best practices and publish recommendations on distribution NDPs. The same action text says NRAs, with ACER and CEER, should provide guidance to DSOs on planning by Q4 2024.

Action 3 is the Communication’s DSO planning action; the wiki’s Distribution Network Development Plan page draws on the later EU DSO Entity and ACER-CEER DNDP outputs that address the same subject.

Regulatory incentives for forward-looking grid build-out (Actions 4-5)

• Action 4 (Q1 2025): Commission, with ACER, ENTSO-E and EU DSO Entity, to propose guidance identifying conditions under which approval of anticipatory investments should normally be expected, including conditional provision for projects of differing development certainty.
• Action 5 (mid-2024): Commission to issue guidance on cross-border cost sharing for offshore projects.

The section text also calls for “a rapid agreement on the Electricity Market Design reform” with provisions recognising anticipatory investments, a transmission access guarantee for offshore renewables and accounting for both CAPEX and OPEX in network tariffs. (The wiki elsewhere frames the CAPEX+OPEX principle as TOTEX; the Communication itself does not use that term.)

Incentivising better usage of the grids (Actions 6-8)

• Action 6 (from adoption): ENTSO-E and EU DSO Entity to agree harmonised definitions of available grid hosting capacity and establish a pan-EU overview (by mid-2025); regulators should establish frameworks for non-firm connection agreements “where relevant” and disincentivise unsubstantiated connection requests.
• Action 7 (Q4 2024): ENTSO-E and EU DSO Entity to promote uptake of smart grid, network efficiency and innovative technologies — update the Technopedia (DLR, HTS cables, STATCOM, VSC in HVDC, HVDC breakers, PST) by end-2024 and at least annually.
• Action 8 (Q1 2025): ACER, in its next tariff report (due January 2025), to recommend best practices for promoting smart grids and network efficiency through tariff design, considering OPEX in addition to CAPEX and benefit sharing.

Improving access to finance (Actions 9-10)

• Action 9 (from adoption): Commission to identify tailored financing models and strengthen dialogue with investors, credit agencies and others to address obstacles to private financing (a reinforced process to launch by end-2023; EIB/InvestEU financing tools to be explored).
• Action 10 (from Q1 2024): Commission to increase visibility of EU funding programmes (ERDF, cohesion funds, RRF, Modernisation Fund) for smart grids and distribution modernisation. Context in the text: the Recovery and Resilience Plans allocate around EUR 13 billion to grids; CEF-Energy is limited to PCIs and does not cover local DSO needs; “a new approach to identify and support local grid projects appears necessary”.

Faster permitting and public engagement (Actions 11-12)

• Action 11 (2024-25): Commission to support permitting acceleration through guidance and technical support on existing legislative tools (emergency Council Regulation 2022/2577, revised RED); Member States are encouraged to transpose the revised RED rapidly. Includes guidance on dedicated infrastructure areas for grid projects by mid-2025.
• Action 12 (from adoption): Commission to launch a Pact for Engagement for early, regular and meaningful stakeholder engagement (Annex II).

Strengthening grid supply chains (Actions 13-14)

• Action 13 (Q4 2024): ENTSO-E and EU DSO Entity to collaborate with technology providers on common technology specifications (ESO Workshop Agreement by end-2024) and to give manufacturers visibility of procurement plans.
• Action 14 (by 2025): Commission to promote common technical requirements for generation and demand connection through revisions of the relevant network codes.

The supply-chain section also notes that the Net-Zero Industry Act proposal treats grid technologies as strategic net-zero technologies.

Anticipatory investments in the Communication

The Communication treats anticipatory investment as a regulatory principle already present in the Commission’s Electricity Market Design reform proposal, and commits (Action 4) to guidance on when it should be granted:

“An agreement of concerned parties on the need for anticipatory investments is therefore important.”

It argues that limiting development to current system needs “may increase the future system costs”, and that welfare losses from delaying network upgrades “will frequently outweigh the additional initial cost of anticipatory investments”, while requiring proportionality to needs. Wiki-derived links to later developments (not stated in the Communication):

• Anticipatory Investments Guidance C/2025/3291 (June 2025), Source - European Grids Package COM2025-1005
• Sweden’s Ei2025:03 (Source - Ei Ställningstaganden Anslutningsprocessen (Ei2025-02 till 05)), which the wiki records as establishing anticipatory investment as an obligation under Swedish ellagen

DSOs — first targeted action

The Communication says that with this plan it promotes, “for the first time”, action targeted to distribution networks:

• Action 3: EU DSO Entity to map distribution development plans; the text notes around 2,560 DSOs in the EU with widely varying sizes, and that over 900 are EU DSO Entity members
• Stresses coordination of DSO and TSO planning and data exchange, and links network planning to opportunities for new flexibility markets
• Describes distribution connection backlogs as escalating rapidly (several thousand requests per month for a single medium-size DSO)

Legislative outcomes (wiki-derived; not stated in the Communication)

The mapping below is the wiki’s own reading of how later instruments relate to the actions; verify against Source - European Grids Package COM2025-1005 before relying on it.

Relation to other wiki content

• Distribution Network Development Plan — Action 3 (DSO Entity mapping of DNDPs) as the Communication’s DSO planning action
• Electric Power Transmission — investment scale; TYNDP-based need to double cross-border capacity
• Congestion Management — regulatory framework for anticipatory investment; market-based redispatching context
• Distribution System Operator — first EU recognition of DSO grid development as a distinct policy challenge
• Source - European Grids Package COM2025-1005 — the 2025 Package that followed this plan
• Clean Energy Package — EMD Reform 2024 includes the regulatory provisions on anticipatory investment and TOTEX