The grid gap: Barriers to building the missing link in global electrification
As countries gather this month in Türkiye for COP31, energy security, electrification, and the expansion of clean power systems anchor the conversation. The COP31 Presidency’s electrification pledge, which aims to increase electricity’s share of final energy consumption to 35% by 2035, casts a spotlight on the electric transmission infrastructure necessary to meet these goals.
With rapidly increasing global energy demand and accelerating electrification, grid development must keep pace. To achieve global decarbonization goals, improve reliability, and increase access to clean generation, nations around the world must rapidly expand and update their electric transmission infrastructure to connect clean generation sources to demand centers. Effective and resilient electric transmission systems are also essential for expanding energy access, strengthening energy security, and enabling economic development.
However, significant roadblocks stand in the way of needed transmission deployment, from shared global barriers such as financing gaps and supply chain constraints to region-specific obstacles, including ineffective or insufficient policy frameworks, planning, and coordination, permitting and siting challenges, and local opposition.
Regions can learn from each other’s experiences in overcoming these challenges, and building the necessary transmission infrastructure will require international collaboration. Global stages such as COP are prime locations for this collaboration, providing a platform for strengthening global partnerships and discussing innovative strategies for grid expansion.
Barriers to grid expansion
Grid investment lags behind ambition
Although transmission is a critical component of global power systems, investment in grid infrastructure is lagging behind investment in new generation: annual investment in generation has risen nearly 70% since 2015 to around $1 trillion, compared with $400 billion for grids, contributing to congestion and delays connecting new generation.
This financing gap for transmission is shared across many regions, but is especially prevalent in Africa: despite representing 20% of the world’s population, the region attracts only 3% of global energy investment. However, many countries in Africa lack the public capital to deploy the necessary infrastructure for the clean energy transition, including transmission, and investment capital costs in the region are more than triple costs in U.S. and Western Europe. New and sustained sources of grid investment and lower costs of capital will be critical to enabling access to clean, affordable, and reliable energy in Africa, and Gulf countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are working to close the gap. These nations have announced more than $175 billion in clean energy investments and commitments in Africa since 2010, with most of this financing announced after 2022. This includes some investment in transmission, but a higher proportion of financing into grid expansion projects across a more diverse set of countries would have a significant impact. In general, additional investment in grids across the world, alongside innovative approaches to financing, would dramatically speed transmission deployment.
In other regions like the U.S., incentive structures and lack of coordination between regional markets can often direct capital toward shorter, smaller lines, creating a financing gap for the most urgently needed and highest value high-voltage, long-distance interregional lines. Significant capital investment will be required to deliver on these high-value additions, but the costs of these investments largely fall to electricity ratepayers. Innovative financing structures, including public-private partnerships and a greater leveraging of public financing tools, including replacing more expensive private capital with lower-cost, tax exempt public debt, can reduce project and system-wide costs. In New England states, for example, public financing options could reduce costs for new transmission projects by as much as 43%, delivering more than $8.3 billion in customer savings. In California, public-private partnerships for transmission development could reduce costs by up to $3 billion annually, or around $123 billion over 40 years. Federal and state governments are already facilitating innovative financing options.
Other regions are also already making progress toward innovative public roles in transmission development to build infrastructure more quickly and affordably. In the United Kingdom, the recently announced Great British Grid initiative will create a publicly owned body to bring together public and private investment to speed infrastructure development and upgrades and will accelerate project delivery.
Global supply chain bottlenecks slow development
Adding to challenges with transmission financing are global supply chain bottlenecks, which further obstruct international transmission deployment. A 2025 report from the International Energy Agency found that delays for procurement for transmission components have increased significantly in recent years, with procurement for cables and transformers often taking almost twice as long as in 2021. In addition, prices for cables have nearly doubled since 2019, while costs of transformers have increased by approximately 75%. These changes are occurring alongside increasing demand: for example, in the US, power transformer demand increased by 116% between 2019 and 2025. When combined with supply chain bottlenecks, this led to a 39% market deficit for power transformers in 2025. Commitments to expand manufacturing of transmission components and spur workforce development, while strengthening global trade partnerships, would help alleviate some of these supply chain constraints.
Compounded challenges in Africa
Africa’s long-term economic development and energy system transformation will depend on strong, financially sustainable power systems. Energy access and reliability varies widely across countries on the continent, but challenges are especially prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite major efforts to increase electricity connection, the region accounts for 85% of the global energy access deficit (over 550 million people), up from 50% in 2010. Where grid connections exist, users face significant reliability and affordability issues. 72% of businesses report experiencing outages, resulting in significant losses and necessitating expensive investment in defensive measures. Power utilities continue to face significant operational and financial challenges. Distribution inefficiencies result in substantial electricity losses, undermining utilities’ ability to expand service, invest in modern grid infrastructure, and support large-scale deployment of clean energy technologies. Furthermore, high investment risk and financing costs constrain clean energy investment across the continent.
Insufficient planning and permitting create added barriers
In regions with more developed grids, countries are still facing challenges in deploying transmission infrastructure at the pace and scale needed to meet demand growth and decarbonization driven electrification. A lack of long-term, national transmission planning and clear cost allocation frameworks in the U.S., for example, prevent the highest impact lines from being identified and built in a timely manner. In both the EU and U.S., misaligned siting and permitting requirements make the coordination needed to build long-distance, high-voltage lines across multiple jurisdictions difficult. Lack of clarity in approval processes and insufficient government capacity to process permits are also common barriers to deploying new projects at scale.
Despite the need for process improvements, safeguards for communities and environmental protections must be secured. Transmission infrastructure can also face substantial local opposition, which can slow, reroute, or even cancel projects. Robust and inclusive community engagement and public participation throughout the transmission planning process can ensure projects deliver meaningful benefits to communities while simultaneously improving project outcomes.
Even with these barriers, regions like the EU are demonstrating promising policy pathways to bolstering the grid, including through the European Grid Package. Presented in December 2025, the Grid Package aims to increase build out of the EU’s transmission systems, improve EU-level coordination to map and plan the required grid infrastructure and upgrade the EU´s permitting regime. The package consists of a proposal to revise the Trans-European Networks for Energy Regulation and a proposal to accelerate permit granting procedures.
Together, these files will help determine how Europe plans, selects and delivers the cross-border infrastructure needed for a more resilient, integrated, and decarbonized energy system. Both of which are currently in the final stages of the legislative process, with trilogue negotiations underway between the European Parliament, the Council, and the European Commission. Once adopted, they will provide an important blueprint for addressing persistent bottlenecks (e.g. by strengthening data input quality and transparency in transmission planning) and provide a positive example for other regions as an ambitious effort to improve grid planning.
Coordination as a pathway forward
Overcoming the barriers above will require efficient and effective policy and regulatory frameworks, long-term planning, coordinated investment, permitting process improvements, and thoughtful community engagement. In addition, joint commitments to cross-border collaboration and coordination across regions will be essential to expand power systems and strengthen grid resilience.
The stakes are high. Grid infrastructure is the critical backbone to increasing energy access, bolstering energy security, supporting economic growth, and facilitating the clean energy transition. Without strong commitments and dedicated action to expand and modernize the grid, efforts to build new clean generation and meet global electrification goals will fall short. COP31 is a timely opportunity for international stakeholders to recognize these challenges, share lessons learned on overcoming barriers, and identify effective strategies to expand the grid and strengthen global partnerships.
