+- Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum (https://www.scivillage.com)
+-- Forum: Culture (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-49.html)
+--- Forum: Communities & Social Networking (https://www.scivillage.com/forum-57.html)
+--- Thread: Article EU grid power struggle: capitals push back against Brussels (electrical network) (/thread-21418.html)
EU grid power struggle: capitals push back against Brussels (electrical network) - C C - Sep 24, 2026
CONTRARIAN AI: The backward grid cannot handle all the utopian dreams that Brussels and tech companies want to burden it with. Cracks in the push to eliminate fossil fuel consumption now expose the dual agenda of this green paradise idealism serving to grant Brussels even more power over member countries. Populations are taxed to support the massive cost of upgrading the grid over ensuing decades, causing public outcry over the increasing invoice payments.
- - - - - - - - - -
EU grid power struggle: capitals push back against Brussels tariff rules
https://www.euronews.com/2026/09/24/eu-grid-power-struggle-capitals-push-back-against-brussels-tariff-rules
EXCERPTS: European Union governments are pushing back against a Brussels drive to reshape electricity network costs, watering down plans for coordinated tariffs as the fight over the bloc’s expensive and congested power grids becomes increasingly political. European Union governments want to weaken a proposal that would hand Brussels greater control over the bloc's power grid, preferring to retain control of how electricity networks are paid for and managed, according to a Council document seen by Euronews.
Political talks over who will pay for the modernisation of the bloc's power grid, a crucial step in meeting the EU's 2050 climate neutrality goal, are underway in Brussels just as electricity moves to the centre of the bloc’s economic strategy.
The EU wants homes and businesses to switch from fossil fuels to electricity, while manufacturers, data centres, heat pumps and electric vehicles are all expected to drive up demand. But the cost of expanding and operating energy grids is increasingly showing up in electricity bills.
Grid charges and taxes combined often outweigh the price of the electricity consumed. Network charges accounted for 27% of household electricity bills and 21% for businesses, while national taxes and levies added another 24% for households and 16% for firms, according to EU data.
Europe's rising electricity bills prompted the European Commission to propose new rules in July designed to slash energy bills amid a growing crisis triggered by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The Commission also introduced an electrification plan setting a 46% goal by 2040 for the Union.
The Irish Presidency — the rotating chairmanship of the Council of the European Union — is seeking to keep the Commission's broad ambition of making electricity cheaper and easier to adopt, while also giving national governments and regulators more room to decide how the rules work in practice, the document reveals.
[...] "These [countries] are showing increasing unease about ceding power to Brussels amid the second energy crisis under the presidency of Ursula Von der Leyen and repeated market shocks the European Commission appears unable to control," said Sassi. [...] The political stakes become even clearer when it comes to new grid connections.
The EU is facing growing queues for grid access as factories, renewable projects, data centres and other electricity-intensive investments compete for limited capacity. The proposed rules would allow EU countries to establish priorities when there is not enough room on the network.
The latest compromise would strengthen the role of member states in setting the general policy direction, leaving regulators the freedom to implement the rules. A large group of countries — including Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Lithuania and Latvia — broadly support giving governments a stronger role.
They argue that deciding which projects get scarce grid capacity is not merely a technical exercise, it involves political choices about industrial competitiveness, energy security and social priorities. The Commission argues that setting technical criteria and network charges is fundamentally a regulatory task.
Denmark has recently announced an emergency grid law that gives data centres the lowest priority for grid connections, after Copenhagen was forced to stop new connections early in the year because of a surge in data centre applications.
Several EU countries fear that the rapid expansion of data centres, which Brussels aims to triple capacity for across the bloc by 2035 as part of a push to reduce reliance on Big Tech and develop Europe's own AI capabilities, could strain electricity grids and drive up domestic energy prices.