IN Brief:
- The European Commission has published a new Union list containing 235 cross-border energy infrastructure projects.
- Electricity, offshore, and smart electricity grid schemes account for 113 of the selected projects.
- The list opens a new route to permitting support and CEF funding at a time of mounting transmission and interconnection pressure.
The European Commission has published the second Union list of Projects of Common Interest and Projects of Mutual Interest, setting out 235 cross-border energy infrastructure schemes that will move into the next phase of regulatory support and funding eligibility.
The new list includes 113 electricity, offshore, and smart electricity grid projects, alongside 100 hydrogen and electrolyser projects, 17 CO₂ transport projects, three smart gas grid schemes, and two gas interconnection projects. Once the list enters into force, it will replace the first Union list and allow the newly selected projects to benefit from streamlined permitting procedures, regulatory support, and access to the next Connecting Europe Facility funding round due to open at the end of April.
For the power sector, the electricity-heavy composition of the list is the point to watch. The European build-out problem is no longer limited to adding renewable generation. The harder task is creating enough grid capacity, interconnection, and smart network capability to move that power across borders and absorb it efficiently in national systems that were not built for today’s flows.
That challenge is visible across multiple parts of the market at once. Offshore wind is scaling in the North Sea and Baltic. Interconnectors are taking on a larger role in balancing variable generation. Electrification is increasing load in transport, heating, and industry. At the same time, congestion remains a structural drag on project delivery, especially where transmission reinforcement moves more slowly than generation consent.
The Union list is designed to intervene at that point of friction. PCI and PMI status does not build the assets by itself, but it changes the conditions around them. Projects receive a clearer route through national permitting systems, stronger coordination where infrastructure crosses jurisdictions, and access to EU financing support that can improve bankability for early-stage development and technically complex network schemes.
The inclusion of smart electricity grid projects is also notable. Grid expansion is not only about new overhead lines and subsea cables. It also depends on digital control, monitoring, flexibility management, and the ability to operate more dynamic networks with greater volumes of inverter-based generation and distributed assets. In that sense, the Union list is a reminder that network modernisation is becoming both a civil engineering task and a systems engineering task.
The scale of the list shows how far Europe’s infrastructure agenda has moved beyond isolated national upgrades. Energy security, market integration, offshore development, and industrial decarbonisation are increasingly tied to cross-border assets. The immediate value of the new list lies in the specific projects it advances, but the broader message is that transmission and grid coordination now sit at the centre of Europe’s decarbonisation timetable.
