SupergridEurope
SGE
SupergridEurope was launched in April 2025 by Irish think tank, Trifecta Energy, established by the family of the late Eddie O’Connor, an Irish renewable energy entrepreneur, author and founder of three global renewable companies: Airtricity, Mainstream Renewables and SuperNode.
ID: 660641098590-11
Lobbying Activity
Response to Roadmap for artificial intelligence and digitalisation for energy (RAID-E)
5 Nov 2025
SupergridEurope is an independent non-profit organisation, headquartered in Ireland and with a Brussels presence, dedicated to promoting and supporting the acceleration and realisation of a pan-European electricity supergrid. We work to ensure Europes power system is made fit for Europe's decarbonised future, enabling energy independence, price stability, and deep electrification through renewable electricity. Often there are no incentives for distribution and transmission system operators to demonstrate and apply innovative technologies, including AI and digitalisation, even those that can demonstrate positive economic, environmental and circularity benefits. New, innovative products are sometimes unjustly perceived as a risk to security of supply, because applying them deviates from business as usual. In the energy sector, this perception can often be overcome by a wider use of digitally aided procedures and technologies, such as hardware in the loop demos and digital twins. Ensuring availability and funding for such approaches to evolve, should be considered in connection with developing regulatory sandboxes for grid technology scaling and demonstration. The energy sector is not making the most of the digitalisation and AI tech? ChatGPT was only launched recently so we are at the beginning and few system operators are leveraging the digital and AI technologies that are rapidly becoming available. The fear of introducing AI and new innovative procedures and technologies in critical infrastructure operations such as power grids are widespread and must be acknowledged and better managed, because the potential advantages in terms of more affordable energy and optimised grid planning and operation. Energy systems are becoming more complex and must be actively managed, so AI and digitalisation tools are essential for developing a grid fit for the purposes of decarbonisation, electrification and energy independence. We must move from the current incremental mode of grid planning, using decades old technology and operational processes towards a more risk-based approach that embrace innovation. AI and digital solutions are the unavoidable enablers for that transition.
Read full responseResponse to European grid package
5 Aug 2025
This is the critical decade for European energy sovereignty and the fight against climate change. The European Commission must seize the moment of unprecedented strong support from the Council and a large majority of members of the European Parliament, to establish the conditions for a pan-European electricity supergrid fit for purpose, to the benefit of European consumers and businesses. EU leaders have called for a genuine Energy Union, requiring ambitious electrification and investments in electricity grids, storage and interconnections, with a view to fully integrating and interconnecting the EU energy market. It is an undertaking of massive proportions. On 19 June, the European Parliament adopted its resolution on grids, calling for a coordinated, pan-European approach to electricity system planning. In May 2024, EU Energy Ministers also agreed on the need for holistic, long-term, coordinated electricity grid infrastructure planning at European level. The Commission's Action Plan for Affordable Energy supports the need for "a fully integrated energy market supported by (...) a cohesive regulatory and governance regime", and, once again, confirms that electricity market integration provides significant economic benefits for consumers of more than 30 billion annually. Grids are expensive. Nevertheless, for every 1.3 bn invested in grids, generation cost is reduced by 4 bn per year in Europe. Similar studies in the US found that a Macrogrid expansion to support a zero-carbon system would cost 350 bn but return 1 trn in economic benefits. So, the ratio is similar: you get two to three times more back in system benefits than you invest in grid infrastructure. On none of the objectives - Market integration; Interconnections; competition and affordability; or Energy Security - is the existing EU framework set up to deliver. In order to do so, while meeting the Union's decarbonisation and energy independence objectives, Europe needs European grid master plans, drawn up by independent master architects. A pan-European electricity grid should be seen as a programme of megaprojects - most likely the biggest ever - that must provide a grid capable of supporting a 100% carbon free electricity supply in less than 15 years - the timeframe of many EU grid projects. This will only be possible if we completely overhaul of the governance and institutional framework for scenarios, needs assessment, grid planning and incentive structures for project execution. The current European legal framework, mandates a bottom-up approach of aggregating national point-to-point connections for the next few years. It is short-sighted, and will deliver a highly inefficient and costly grid infrastructure if maintained. SupergridEurope is calling for the establishment of a European Energy Agency to serve as an independent grid architect. This agency should complement the newly established Energy Union Task Force, work with the EIB, and have the mandate to coordinate long-term grid planning, providing transparent data, identifying grid innovation gaps, overseeing the delivery of major cross-border infrastructure, and ensuring that Europes energy system evolves to meet its climate and competitiveness ambitions. With over 1 trillion needed for grids by 2040 (730 billion for distribution, 477 billion for transmission), action must start now. The European Commission echoed this in June 2025, issuing a guidance document to drive anticipatory grid investments. How we connect and sequence these investments matters. With an independent European Grid Architect coordinating the scale-up, we can reduce delays and avoid costly mistakes. Such an independent body must be established fast.
Read full responseResponse to Evaluation on the operation of the Innovation Fund - 2025
8 Jun 2025
The Commission has the strongest mandate yet, to begin the process of initiating a regulatory framework for planning, financing, and providing the governance for deploying a modern European grid fit for the dual purposes of climate neutrality and energy independence and increased electrification. Unfortunately, the EU Innovation Fund does not yet support these ambitions because it does not fund grid technology innovation. Enabling technologies such as innovative grid technology development projects are eligible for funding under the Delegated Act but are de facto prevented from winning projects because the funding criteria applied put heavy weight on GHG reductions. Of the EUR 3.1 billion allocated under the Innovation Fund since 2020, 74% of total funding has gone to Hydrogen (24%) and CCUS (50%) projects, while Renewables and Storage have only received a combined 18 % of funding. No (innovative) electricity transmission technology funding has ever been allocated for demonstration or manufacturing projects under the Innovation fund. From our perspective, there is an urgent need to adjust the evaluation criteria for electricity transmission. SupergridEurope (SGE) is calling for a sector specific call under the Innovation Fund for Innovative Grid Technologies to remedy this shortcoming of the Innovation Fund, as operated until now. The revised delegated Act on the Innovation Fund allows for such calls. Last year, CurrENT published a report by Compass Lexecon. It found that transmission grid expansion can be accelerated by 5 to 8 years if innovative grid technology deployment is combined with conventional grid expansion. For distribution grids it can be accelerated by 4 to 7 years. Moreover, investment savings of 700 billion could be achieved by 2040. Europe has a strong grid but its not fit for the purposes of decarbonisation and energy independence. And the grid limitations are already staring to show. Ireland is experiencing double digit curtailment rates. German curtailment cost its consumers 7.3 bn in 2022 and 2023. 19 TWh of mainly wind and solar, was lost due to grid bottle necks and had to be replaced by coal and gas generation because of congestion. There are two things we must become better at: 1. Making use of all the tools in the box that we have available today; and 2. Focus attention on bringing new innovative grid technologies that can expand the toolbox. On the first part: Dynamic line rating, advanced conductors, storage as a transmission asset, grid inertia measurement technology are already commercially available and can provide much needed flexibility to the grid. The technologies can be installed in a manner of a few months. They are being deployed at scale around the world. In Europe, we are stuck in demonstration mode. These technologies do not need further demonstration, except for developing new and better versions. These technologies need to be scaled. On the second part, we need demonstration and pilots, followed by scaling up. Europe and the rest of the world - must recognise that we need transmission and distribution technology that can move vast amounts of power. A conventional copper or aluminium cable can only carry 1 GW per cable. If we are to build a power house of 300 to 500 GW offshore wind in the Northern Seas, and a true Energy Union using exclusively conventional cable technologies, we would have the worlds most expensive, obtrusive and energy inefficient wire spaghetti. Conventional copper and aluminium HVDC an HVAC technology must be complemented by cable technology that, can carry several times more power in a single cable, at lower voltages, using less critical raw materials and space and with less environmental impact. The EU Innovation Fund must be made available to access the EU Innovation Fund, e.g. through the introduction of sector specific calls for innovative grid technology innovation, manufacturing and scaling.
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