CurrENT’s position paper on the Regulation as regards future-proofing electricity bills in the Union

Europe’s transition to a decarbonised, electrified economy is driving an unprecedented wave of investment in electricity networks. The European Commission estimates that €1.2 trillion will be required in electricity network investment by 2040, split between €730 billion for distribution and €477 billion for transmission infrastructure.

A substantial share of this investment will be recovered through network tariffs and passed on to consumers, at a time when network costs already account for a significant and rising proportion of household electricity bills. Eurostat recorded an 8.9% rise in EU network costs in 2024 alone, and ACER projects that network costs could rise by 50-100% by 2050 depending on the investment pathway.

Not all of this cost is unavoidable, but a significant share of grid expansion costs can be reduced through greater use of grid-enhancing technologies, including both innovative wire and non-wire technologies. Many of these solutions can be deployed within months or years, rather than the decade or more typically required for conventional infrastructure, and can materially reduce curtailment, congestion, and connection delays.

However, current regulatory frameworks continue to reward system operators primarily for big capital expenditure on physical assets, rather than for the efficiency gains that innovative technologies deliver. This bias discourages system operators from adopting lower-cost solutions, even where these would clearly benefit consumers.

This position paper sets out evidence for this structural problem and proposes four recommendations for the Regulation to future-proof electricity bills:

1. Benefit-based incentives for cost efficiency and optimisation;

2. A common set of performance indicators for efficiency comparison;

3. Reinforcement of smart grid indicators and Union-level progress reporting;

4. Broaden the adoption of TOTEX-based regulation