EU’s electrification and heating and cooling plans open for consultation

The EU’s electrification action plan and heating and cooling strategy aimed to advance progress towards decarbonisation of the region’s energy system are open for comment.

The two initiatives, which were foreseen in the affordable energy action plan published in February 2025 as part of the clean industrial deal, are among the actions indicated towards completing the energy union and intended to further boost clean power generation and diversification of supplies in the EU and thereby reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

Ambitious electrification of the energy system and expanding clean generation sources will increase energy efficiency of the energy sector as a whole, help decarbonise industrial, mobility and heating and cooling sectors and support the uptake of clean and domestic energy production, the plan stated.

“For Europe to move towards a net zero economy, our energy system must be powered by more secure home-grown clean electricity,” Dan Jørgensen, Commissioner for Energy and Housing, comments.

“Our plans to boost electrification and decarbonise heating and cooling will support industry, the buildings and mobility sectors in replacing the use of dirty fossil fuels with decarbonised energy at competitive prices. This is a win-win for the economy and for the climate.”

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Electrification action plan

The electrification action plan is intended to address key barriers and identify priority policy actions to accelerate this electrification, also considering the different use cases in industry, transport and buildings.

The target is 32-33% in 2030, compared with 23% in 2023.

The plan is proposed to set out the necessary conditions on the electricity generation side to achieve its objective, with growing and diversified, clean, home-grown electricity matching demand for electrification, accompanied by growing storage capacities to spread that generation over time.

Measures must be considered to reduce the cost of bringing that generation to demand centres, e.g. by encouraging new demand to be located close to clean energy generation installations.

Ensuring the reliability and adequacy of the electricity system is also a prerequisite, requiring a system based on flexibility, cross-border integration and the efficient contribution of clean energy assets and storage.

A key action plan task is to put forward measures targeted at the different sectors and sub-sectors based on their electrification potential.

Another is to identify key measures to improve the framework conditions for promoting electrification, in particular by improving the price ratio between electricity and fossil fuels at retail level.

The action plan also aims to adopt an approach based on the whole value chain, covering in particular the manufacturing of electrification technologies and their installation, as well as the enabling financing instruments.

Heating and cooling strategy

The heating and cooling strategy is aimed at achieving cost-effective transition to clean heating and cooling by increasing energy efficiency including through better system integration by addressing barriers that remain beyond the direct reach of the new legislation and require additional efforts to be overcome.

These include financial barriers, obstacles created by infrastructure planning and development and challenges to incentivise demand, to address summer and winter energy poverty and to ensure the availability of trained professionals by raising the attractiveness of the sector.

The strategy also is intended to include non-legislative actions at system level to act on efficiency levers such as planning and district heating, on the supply side to accelerate the deployment of clean heat and cold and reuse of waste heat and on the demand side on incentives and challenges for specific use cases, from buildings to industrial heat.

Both consultations are open to 20 November 2025 with publication scheduled for Q1 2026.