To build or not to build

Europe needs more power. But a lack of clear pricing signals and the unknown impact of new environmental legislation is making risk forecasting difficult, and could hinder new plant construction

A heavy programme of new power plant construction in Europe is essential to ensure security of supply in the coming years, but taking decisions on building future plants has never been more challenging.

According to the Union for the Coordination of Transmission of Electricity, up to 50GW of new capacity must be created in Europe by 2015 to meet expected electricity demand growth of around 1%-2% per year in Northern Europe and 3%-4% per year in Southern Europe.

But there are two major challenges