[Episode #279] – Debottlenecking Europe’s Grid

[Episode #279] – Debottlenecking Europe’s Grid

From The Energy Transition Show with Chris Nelder by XE Network

July 1, 2026 · 22 min · Episode 279

About this episode

The episode discusses the challenges of connecting renewable energy projects to Europe's grid and features insights from Tara Connolly of Beyond Fossil Fuels.

Right now, Great Britain has more than enough new solar projects waiting to be connected to its distribution grid to meet its 2030 renewable energy target. Italy and Poland could reach half their 2030 solar targets just by connecting the solar already sitting in their queues. Across just eight European countries, there's a whopping 375 GW of wind and solar PV projects, and an even larger 455 GW of battery storage projects, just languishing in connection queues. Together, these wind, solar and battery resources are roughly equivalent to the entire generation capacity of those countries. These are the shocking findings from a new study commissioned by the European climate nonprofit Beyond Fossil Fuels. Its estimates are deliberately conservative: the study values the trapped clean energy projects at around €100 billion, with the real total almost certainly higher. In this episode, we welcome Tara Connolly, their Programme Lead for Energy Markets and Grids, to share what the report found and learn what can be done about this sad state of affairs. And the crunch isn't only on the supply side. Data centers are now muscling to the front of the same queues. In Ireland, they already…

People in this episode

Host: Chris Nelder

Guest: Tara Connolly

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Beyond Fossil Fuels

Places: Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Europe, Ireland, Dublin

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