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Affordable Energy Action Plan
In February 2025, alongside its Clean Industrial Deal, the European Commission published its Action Plan for Affordable Energy. It outlines the Commission's strategy to secure affordable, efficient, and clean energy for all Europeans. It emphasises the need to strengthen the Energy Union due to high energy costs affecting citizens and industries through measures to lower energy bills, promote decarbonisation, and drive growth and investment.
The plan identifies three main factors driving up energy costs: reliance on imported fossil fuels, inefficiencies in the electricity system, and increasing system costs covered by network charges and taxes. To address these issues, the Action Plan includes eight actions to reduce energy costs and build a genuine Energy Union that delivers competitiveness, security, decarbonisation, and a just transition. These actions include making electricity bills more affordable, bringing down the cost of electricity supply, improving gas markets for fair energy prices, increasing energy efficiency via energy savings, improving the energy union, creating a tripartite contract for affordable energy, ensuring security of supply to increase price stability and creating price crisis preparedness.
The Action Plan for Affordable Energy aims to deliver a genuine Energy Union for competitiveness, affordability, security, and sustainability, requiring the involvement of all actors, including the EU, Member States, industry, businesses, workers, innovators, and citizens.
What’s in it for hydrogen?
The plan highlights the importance of hydrogen in the EU's energy transition. It mentions that new hydrogen networks are necessary to support the energy transition and industrial decarbonization, highlights the role of flexibility and system integration to make energy affordable, and promotes security of supply. The European Commission also highlights plans to streamline current permitting and licensing practices for the deployment of new nuclear energy technologies, such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), and renewable projects. Finally, several measures concern the need to make electricity more affordable, via for example reduction of network charges, providing guidance to Member States on the design of PPAs, or developing new rules to support the further development of European forward markets and increasing hedging opportunities.
Links to legislation and additional information
