Electrification and decarbonisation are two sides of the same coin and the urgency is on, writes Eurelectric’s Gael Glorieux.

Electrification of society will bring about huge benefits. A massive shift in clean electricity use will foster the creation of two million jobs according to the International Labour Organisation, save lives thanks to reduced air pollution, and reduce Europe’s gas and oil import bill. The 2020s must therefore pace up the move to an increasingly decarbonised, decentralised and digitalised power system. This will be done courtesy of all clean and renewables technologies. In 2020, renewables represented 40% of the electricity generation mix, nuclear 26%, and fossil fuels 34%. By 2030, we expect renewables to reach 60% and fossil fuels to drop to 19%.

This means adding some 470GW of centralised renewables and 40GW of self-consumption, which would be deploying no […]