As Europe accelerates its clean energy transition, the modernisation and expansion of electricity grids have become a top priority. The European Grids Package aims to ensure that Europe’s networks are fit for a decarbonised, decentralised, and digital energy system — one that can integrate renewables, enable flexibility, and empower consumers.
Across Europe, regional and local Energy Agencies are already driving this transformation on the ground. With their technical expertise, territorial knowledge, and close relationships with citizens, SMEs, and municipalities, regional and local Energy Agencies are natural advisers and change-makers for the modernisation of Europe’s energy grids. They help plan and implement local energy solutions, support industry decarbonisation, and enable community-led initiatives — ensuring that the transition remains fair, efficient, and rooted in local realities.
As the European network of regional and local Energy Agencies, FEDARENE has contributed to the European Commission’s consultation on the Grids Package, bringing forward the perspective of its members underlined the crucial role that local and regional actors must play in shaping Europe’s future energy systems. Their experience in integrated planning, social acceptance, permitting, and flexibility demonstrates that Europe’s grid transformation cannot succeed without the active involvement of those closest to the territories.
Gran Canaria: A Window into Europe’s Grid Challenges
During the consultation, many FEDARENE members shared their valuable expertise and on-the-ground experience to inform the Grids Package. Among the contributors, the Gran Canaria Island Energy Council (CIEGC), represented by Raúl García Brink, FEDARENE’s Vice-President for Grid Capacity and Flexibility, shared the urgent perspective of Europe’s insular and peripheral regions. In the first months of 2025, nearly a quarter of the island’s renewable electricity production had to be curtailed — forced reductions caused by grid bottlenecks, excess generation, and limited storage.
“These problems are no longer isolated,” Raúl explains. “From Greek islands to rural Portugal and Poland, local bottlenecks are slowing down Europe’s clean energy transition.”
To tackle these challenges, Gran Canaria is deploying innovative storage solutions: batteries at the Gran Canaria Arena and Arinaga Industrial Estate, pumped hydro storage at the Salto de Chira project, and exploratory green hydrogen systems. These tools absorb surplus energy and release it when demand rises, unlocking renewable potential and stabilising the grid.
Yet structural and administrative barriers remain. Several projects funded under the 2023 IDAE storage call face delays due to complex permitting. Outer islands also struggle to access EU funding equitably, with competitive calls often favouring continental regions. Raúl stresses the need for tailored regulation, investment in flexibility, and supportive policies for islands and remote territories.
From Local Lessons to European Action – a call from Energy Agencies
Gran Canaria shows why Europe’s energy transition cannot succeed on large-scale infrastructure alone. Integrated planning, targeted storage deployment, and equitable support for local actors are essential to turn ambition into action.
“The grid is no longer a background infrastructure — it is the main stage,” Raúl concludes. “No kilowatt — and no territory — should be left behind.”
Building on these lessons, energy agencies across Europe call for the Grids Package to recognise and embed their essential role in the planning, permitting, and operation of modern energy networks.
They urge the EU to establish a harmonised European framework for distribution grid planning based on a place-based, multilevel governance approach, ensuring that regional and local perspectives feed into National Grid Development Plans. Regional and local Energy Agencies also advocate for clearer and fairer permitting rules, digital one-stop shops for grid, storage and renewables, and a balanced sharing of responsibilities and risks between grid operators and applicants. They call for stronger support for energy communities and prosumers, including simplified connection procedures, lower grid fees, open access to DSO data, and long-term funding for local support structures such as one-stop shops.
Finally, they stress that grid flexibility must be seen holistically, as the dynamic capacity of the entire system to balance distributed generation, consumption, storage, and market interaction, supported by digitalisation, tailored investment in islands and rural regions, and coordinated action between regional and local Energy Agencies, DSOs, and regulators.
By listening to local voices and empowering regional actors, Europe can transform its grids into resilient ecosystems, ensuring a renewable-powered future that leaves no community behind.
The expertise and territorial knowledge of energy agencies are indispensable to delivering an efficient, resilient, and inclusive expansion of Europe’s grid infrastructure. Their contribution must be fully leveraged to achieve the EU’s climate neutrality and competitiveness objectives.
