Ukraine’s energy security and its wider ramifications for Europe

If you live in Frankfurt or Paris and notice your kettle boiling more slowly, or your heater noisier than usual, this could be because a Russian rocket just slammed into a Ukrainian power plant, causing a drop in grid frequency across Europe. Vladimir Putin’s tanks and artillery may be confined to Ukrainian territory for now, but his energy war has already reached our homes.

This happens because the rest of continental Europe swiftly integrated Ukraine into its energy grid. It was slow at first, waiting till bombs started falling in February 2022, but then it moved fast, linking Ukraine to Europe’s main electrical network in two weeks.

Had it not done so, Ukraine’s system would collapse and the lights would go out across much of the country for far longer each time Russia destroys a power plant or transmission line — as it most recently did in the Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Instead, grid stability is maintained almost uninterruptedly because electricity can easily and instantaneously flow from neighbouring countries to Ukraine, helping maintain hospitals, public transport and other critical services. Ukraine’s electricity system now shares the same heartbeat as the rest of Europe, and all Europe’s generation can help support Ukraine, a good example of better grid connectivity resulting in better resilience.

A momentary delay to your hot water seems a small price to pay, but countries bordering Ukraine make far larger sacrifices. Poland, Slovakia, Hungary or Romania are harder hit by Ukrainian grid instability, so their utilities must go further to balance the network. This can lead to higher bills for end-customers. Looking for better ways to achieve balancing at lower cost is essential.

This issue is about much more than Ukraine. EU leaders should complete the single market once and for all, above all in energy, where it is at its most fragmented. Russia’s violent destabilisation of Ukraine and the knock-on effect on its EU neighbours means improving the whole European market is about European security as much as competitiveness.

With a peace agreement in Ukraine potentially in the offing, some European leaders hope a resumption of cheap Russian gas will save Europe from its economic malaise. Even Friedrich Merz, set to become German Chancellor on 6 May, has not ruled this out. In the 1990s and 2000s, it was argued that Russia’s reliance on Europe as a market for its gas would bind Russia into Europe’s security architecture. This proved false: Europe relied on Russia, but Russia did not rely on any single customer, so it could play European countries against one another. It also relies more on oil than gas for its government revenue and can sustain gas sales through LNG exports. Europe must learn from the past and seize the opportunity to build a new energy security architecture based on domestic renewable energy and energy technology innovation.

The EU did well to synchronise Ukraine with its grid, but it must now go further, building more connections across the North, Mediterranean and Baltic seas; protecting infrastructure with defence systems, drones, radar and enhanced cyber security; and ensuring grid flexibility to maintain grid stability and energy security.

The EU has helped reduce the Baltic countries’ exposure by completing their synchronisation with the continental Europe grid, finally decoupling from the Russian electricity system – a long-overdue decision that should also extend to their gas network (including LNG shipments).

Synchronisation was not easy. It required years of planning, billions in investment, and major infrastructure upgrades, including new or reinforced interconnections with Poland, Finland, and Sweden, like the LitPol and upcoming Harmony Link. It also meant deploying nine synchronous condensers – century-old, costly, and inefficient technology – to ensure grid stability. Yet vulnerabilities remain. Moscow has repeatedly shown its willingness to sabotage critical infrastructure and exploit energy chokepoints. European leaders must stay vigilant, treating all high-voltage interconnections between the Baltics and continental Europe as critical infrastructure. The political will to do this must persist, or the success story might end in failure.

The same commitment is needed to consolidate its own energy market. Rather than building a bigger grid, the EU should use state-of-the-art technology to upgrade existing infrastructure, creating a better grid that is more resilient and decentralised, where renewables can come on stream cheaper and more easily. It should also go fully digital, for example by using Blockchain to future-proof key strategic infrastructure against sophisticated Russian cyber-attacks.

Without such innovations and investments, Europe risks repeating the mistakes of the past, downplaying its energy vulnerabilities and underestimating the will of its adversaries to exploit them. The war in Ukraine has exposed Europe’s fragile energy backbone; the time to fortify it is now. Leaders must seize this moment to build not just a greener grid, but a safer, more resilient one that can stand firm against future geopolitical shocks.