{"id":1093321,"date":"2026-07-16T18:27:21","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T18:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1093321\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T18:27:21","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T18:27:21","slug":"eu-sets-target-to-double-electrification-rate-cut-oil-gas-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1093321\/","title":{"rendered":"EU Sets Target To Double Electrification Rate, Cut Oil & Gas Use"},"content":{"rendered":"

The European Union has unveiled<\/a> the Electrification Action Plan, aiming for electricity to account for 46% of total energy consumption within the bloc by 2040, effectively doubling the current rate. Spearheaded by the European Commission, the aggressive policy shift is a direct economic and security response to the energy fallout amid the Middle East conflict. Currently, ~23% of the EU’s final energy consumption is powered by electricity, a level that has plateaued for a decade.<\/p>\n

In effect, Europe now considers electrification no longer purely a climate initiative but rather a matter of state sovereignty and national security. The region remains highly exposed to global market turbulence, importing over 80% of its natural gas and over 90% of its oil. The EU estimates that reaching the 46% target could slash its fossil fuel import bills by up to \u20ac260 billion annually by 2040. However, this aggressive shift in the energy mix also forms a core pillar of the EU’s long-term decarbonization strategies. The shift will encompass transitioning sectors such as transportation and domestic heating to renewable-powered electric grids and heat pumps to avoid paying volatile market prices for imported oil and natural gas. Electrification is also expected to yield inherent efficiency gains: to wit, electric motors and heat pumps are fundamentally more efficient than traditional combustion engines and fossil fuel boilers.<\/p>\n

However, the electrification drive is expected to come with its own set of challenges. To meet this 46% electrification target, the EU is likely to face several systemic challenges, including high consumer electricity-to-gas price ratios as well as resistance from member states opposing new carbon pricing levies. The electricity-to-gas price ratio compares the cost of one unit of electricity to one unit of gas per kWh. In the EU, high consumer electricity-to-gas price ratios act as the biggest barrier to electrification. The EU electricity-to-gas price ratio currently exceeds 3.0x, above the bloc\u2019s targets of 2.5 for households and 2.0 for industry largely due to non-energy charges, levies, social tariffs and legacy subsidies.
Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com<\/strong><\/p>\n

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The European Union has unveiled the Electrification Action Plan, aiming for electricity to account for 46% of total…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1093322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[67542,35,221851,2000,299,5187,37849,46820,1242],"class_list":["post-1093321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-electrification","tag-energy","tag-energy-systems","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-grid","tag-power-generation","tag-renewables"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116931071032916486","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1093321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1093322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1093321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1093321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1093321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}