New Transmission Line Construction Climbs 50% to 21,000 km

IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera said grids would be crucial to both the energy transition and the COP31 Presidency’s ambition to raise global electrification to 35% by 2035. The agency’s analysis, he said, calls for global grid investment to more than double, reaching a cumulative $10 trillion by 2035. La Camera urged a shift from targets and individual projects to implementation and large-scale delivery.

Grid capacity is a particular challenge for wind and solar, whose output varies with weather. Their best sites are often far from major demand centers, and when supply exceeds demand, some electricity is curtailed. The International Energy Agency said in 2023 that utilities would need to add or replace about 50 million kilometers of transmission lines by 2040 for countries committed to the Paris Agreement to meet their pledges.

The investment needed is substantial. The European Commission estimated that the EU would require $2 trillion to $2.3 trillion for grid upgrades by 2050 to meet its climate goals. EU grid investment was $90.5 billion in 2024; energy think tank Bruegel says annual spending would need to exceed $100 billion.

Wood Mackenzie said this week that prioritizing energy security over emissions targets could still result in lower emissions if countries electrify faster and reduce reliance on imported hydrocarbons. Its head of scenarios and technologies, Prakash Sharma, described the energy transition as being at a “genuine crossroads,” with countries making different choices about how to power their economies.

The source article says the Iran war has intensified concern about energy prices and import dependence, particularly in Asia and the EU. Wood Mackenzie said those pressures could encourage electrification, more wind and solar, and expanded nuclear generation. Turkey has proposed a COP31 goal of raising electricity’s share of final energy to 35%, from about 20% today, without requiring a reduction in hydrocarbon use. Whether energy security-driven changes will reduce oil, gas and coal consumption remains uncertain.