Ready to sail, but anchored by uncertainty: planning as a compass for Europe’s energy transition

Industrial demand for clean energy is accelerating, while grids, hydrogen and CO₂ networks struggle to keep pace. New planning tools and coordination efforts are beginning to emerge, but experts warn: “Without long-term certainty, investors will keep waiting, unable to price the risks of the energy transition.”

In the port of Rotterdam, one of Europe’s main industrial gateways, a cargo vessel can remain moored for hours – sometimes days – waiting for the right window to move. In a global landscape marked by trade tensions, geopolitical instability and renewed tariffs, uncertainty has become routine. But today, uncertainty does not stop at shipping lanes or commercial agreements. On land, a different kind of waiting is taking shape. Electricity grids are under pressure, hydrogen networks and the pipelines and storage sites needed to manage captured CO₂ are still under development, and investment decisions are increasingly postponed until clearer signals emerge. Technologies are ready – from steel and chemicals to fuels and industrial components. Yet many industrial choices remain on hold.

Recent data from the European Commission shows that electricity prices for industrial users in the EU have remained higher than in other major economies, often reaching – and in some cases exceeding – 150 euros per megawatt-hour. In the United States, prices have typically stayed below 80 euros per megawatt-hour, while in China they have been even lower. As Mike Hemsley, deputy director at the Energy Transitions Commission, notes, the issue goes beyond short-term market volatility. “It is hard to separate energy availability from energy prices,” he explains. “Where clean and reliable electricity is abundant, costs are structurally lower. What we are starting to see is a divergence between regions that can access very cheap clean power and those that cannot – and that divergence will increasingly shape industrial competitiveness.”

Prices alone, however, do not explain the growing sense of inertia affecting European industry. As electrification expands across manufacturing, transport and buildings, demand is rising faster than generation capacity and networks in several parts of the continent. Authorisation procedures remain slow, grids are increasingly congested, and renewable output is not always available when industrial demand peaks. Planning long-term investments under these conditions becomes a high-risk exercise. This mismatch between ambition and feasibility exposes the limits of traditional energy planning. As a result, companies are often asked to invest without a clear picture of when electricity, hydrogen or CO₂ transport will actually be available. Hemsley cautions against treating these constraints as immutable. “Grid capacity, delivery timelines and permitting are structural bottlenecks, but they are not inevitable barriers,” he says. “We already see examples – in countries like the United Kingdom and the Netherlands – where reforms to grid queues and planning processes are helping prioritise projects that actually meet needs of the system.” The challenge, he argues, lies as much in governance and coordination as in technology.

It is precisely this gap between high-level ambition and on-the-ground reality that Mopo seeks to address. Rather than delivering a single optimal pathway, the project develops modelling tools designed to make constraints visible and comparable, linking pan-European energy dynamics with detailed local industrial conditions across electricity, gas, hydrogen, CO₂ and demand. Building on earlier work on system flexibility, the models operate across different temporal and spatial resolutions, improving performance without sacrificing realism. A strong focus on interoperable data workflows helps reduce the friction caused by incompatible formats and assumptions.

As Tars Verschelde, energy modeller at Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven, explains, the ambition behind the initiative is not limited to producing a single set of results. “We do aim to provide clear answers,” he notes, “but the broader goal is to develop tools that remain usable over time and across different applications.” This emphasis on adaptability is central to the project’s philosophy. “The idea is to keep the model flexible enough to support many different questions, rather than being tied to a single use.” In this sense, “within Mopo, a form of analytical infrastructure is being developed that allows decision-makers to explore system dynamics and capacity-related interactions before constraints at system level translate into delayed or sub-optimal investment decisions”.

The value of this approach becomes clear in real industrial settings. A central case study focuses on the industrial cluster spanning the Netherlands and Belgium, part of the wider Antwerp–Rotterdam–Rhine–Ruhr area. One of Europe’s most energy-intensive regions, it hosts major ports, refineries and chemical plants embedded in tightly interconnected infrastructures. Led by TNO researcher Kira West, the case study shows that key assumptions change once the focus moves beyond the national level. “Several key assumptions look very different when you move to higher geographical resolution,” West explains. The feasibility of repurposing gas pipelines for hydrogen transport depends on where supply and demand are located, while the timing of industrial investments may hinge on when and where grid reinforcements or electrolyser capacity come online. According to West, combining detailed industrial modelling with a broader European perspective helps expose trade-offs that would otherwise remain hidden. “Across Europe, industrial transition pathways are constrained by grid capacity, local energy and feedstock prices, and access to CO₂ transport and storage systems,” she notes. “Exploring pathways that capture these dynamics in detail, without losing the wider European context, helps clarify which pathways are feasible – and when.” Hemsley echoes this view: “If grounded in real-world developments, scenario-based tools are essential to reducing uncertainty by clarifying credible options.”

Similar dynamics are playing out elsewhere in Europe. Hydrogen Valley initiatives highlight how industrial demand is outpacing deployment, while in parts of the Netherlands and Germany grid congestion has already made new industrial connections more complex, despite mature technologies and significant investment. For Hemsley, the remaining gap is increasingly financial rather than technological. “Europe already has strong climate targets and a mature carbon pricing system,” he observes. “What is missing is long-term certainty for investors. Without effective de-risking mechanisms, many industrial players will delay investment – not because they oppose the transition, but because they cannot price the risk.”

What emerges is an industrial transition entering a more demanding phase, where network readiness and constraints actively shape decisions. In highly integrated regions, feasibility depends on concrete conditions. In this context, planning is less about defining ideal end states than about navigating scarcity, competition and timing. Much like a vessel waiting for clearance in a congested port, Europe’s industry is often ready to move but constrained by conditions beyond individual projects. The challenge today is no longer deciding the direction of travel, but understanding when – and with how much energy – it becomes possible.

Cover image by Logan Voss on Unsplash