The EU energy corridors are links within the EU to unite the 27 countries and do not concern connections with third country suppliers.

To upgrade Europe's infrastructure, the EU Commission has estimated that around €200 billion is needed until 2030 for transmission grids and gas pipelines.

As not all investments are commercially viable and because the market alone is likely to only provide half of the necessary investment the EU is helping to build and fund energy infrastructure projects all over Europe.

According to the Commission the implementation of the TEN-E strategy is expected to bring a €600 billion increase in socio-economic benefits in terms of avoided generation costs, more competitive wholesale prices and especially growth and jobs.

The Trans-European Networks for Energy (TEN-E) is a policy that is focused on linking the energy infrastructure of EU countries. As part of the policy, nine priority corridors and three priority thematic areas have been identified.

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The EU helps countries in priority corridors and priority thematic areas to work together to develop better connected energy networks, and provides funding for new energy infrastructure.

In March 2019, as part of the partial political agreement between the European Parliament and the Council on the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for the period 2021-2027, the co-legislators agreed on the need to evaluate the effectiveness and policy coherence of the TEN-E Regulation 347/2013 by 31 December 2020.

Energy infrastructure is a key enabler for the energy transition as reflected in the Commission’s communication on the European Green Deal and a Clean Planet for all (COM(2018) 773 final), explicitly referring to the need for a review of the TEN-E Regulation to ensure consistency with climate neutrality objectives.

Current Corridors

The nine priority corridors (4 for electricity, 4 for gas and 1 for oil) cover different geographic regions in the field of electricity, gas and oil infrastructure. EU support for development in these corridors will connect regions currently isolated from European energy markets, strengthen existing cross-border interconnections, and help integrate renewable energy.

Electricity corridors

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Gas corridors

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Oil corridors

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Thematic areas

Smart grids deployment: increase deployment of smart grids to help integrate renewable energy and allow consumers to better regulate their energy consumption
Electricity highways: construction of electricity highways – large grids that allow electricity to be transported over long distances across Europe (e.g. from wind farms in the North and Baltic Seas to storage facilities in Scandinavia and the Alps)
Cross-border carbon dioxide network: development of transport infrastructure for captured CO2.

Electricity interconnection targets

To achieve its climate and energy goals, Europe needs to improve cross-border electricity interconnections. Reliable connections with neighboring countries also lower the risk of electricity blackouts, reduce the need to build new power plants, and make it easier to manage variable renewable power sources like solar and wind.
In October 2014, the European Council called for all EU countries to achieve electricity interconnection of at least 10% of their installed production capacity by 2020.

2021 Revision of the TEN-E policy: priority to electricity

The TEN-E in its current form is not fit to support the achievement of the climate neutrality objective for 2050. Therefore, the revision proposed by the EU Commission is based on smart grid solutions without fossil fuel directly involved.

On 15 December 2020, the Commission adopted a proposal for a revision of the EU rules on the TEN-E Regulation COM(2020) 824 final. The new Regulation will contribute to the EU emissions reduction objectives by promoting integration of renewables and new clean energy technologies into the energy system.

It will continue to connect regions currently isolated from European energy markets, strengthen existing cross-border interconnections and promote cooperation with partner countries. It will also help timely delivery of cross-border infrastructure by proposing ways to simplify and accelerate permitting and authorisation procedures. However, to achieve the climate neutrality objective for 2050, the new TEN-E will focus on energy corridors and interconnections facilitating the increase of electricity consumption from renewable.

On 15 December 2021, the European Commission adopted a Proposal for a Directive on common rules for the internal markets in renewable and natural gases and in hydrogen, which is complementary to the proposed TEN-E Regulation as it focuses on alignment of the national plans with the requirements of the European wide Ten Year Network Development plan.

The preparatory work on this revision drew its evidence from a support study and an extensive consultation process to seek input from specialists, stakeholders and the public. It included a public consultation (18 May 2020 - 13 July 2020) and 4 stakeholder webinars (2-11 June 2020). Go to Page of EP committee on Industry, Technological Research and Energy for following the dossier, or ask us our consultation.