At Finlandia Hall in Helsinki, during Power Summit 2026 organised by Eurelectric, Jan Rosenow from the University of Oxford says electrification is not merely a climate measure, it is the most efficient way to reorganise the entire energy system.
An energy system still hooked on fossil fuels
Rosenow opened with a frank assessment of where Europe stands. Gas and oil prices remain 60 to 70 percent above pre-war levels since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and there is little reason to expect a quick return to the old normal. The crisis has, however, had one useful side effect: it has galvanised policymaking across the continent in a way that creates a genuine window of opportunity.
The picture across sectors is uneven. The electricity system has made remarkable progress, with roughly two thirds of European power now coming from nuclear and renewables. Transport and industry, however, remain almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels, mostly in the form of imported oil and gas.
Spain emerged as a standout example of what is achievable. The country has shifted rapidly from a situation where gas-fired plants set the wholesale price for most hours of the year to one where that happens only rarely. The correlation between gas price-setting hours and overall electricity costs is striking. Rosenow was clear: Spain is a market to watch.
Six phases toward a renewable system
Drawing on an analytical framework from the International Energy Agency, Rosenow walked the audience through the six phases countries pass through as renewable penetration grows. According to that, Germany is already in phase five, where surplus solar and wind generation regularly pushes hourly prices into negative territory. A few weeks before the summit, Germany had recorded an entire week of prices at minus 499 euros per megawatt hour, energy the grid simply could not absorb.
Phase six, a genuinely balanced high-renewables system with sufficient storage, remains uncharted territory for any single country. Denmark, now generating over 90 percent of its electricity from renewables, may be the first to get there.
The efficiency argument at the heart of electrification
The central argument Rosenow made was deceptively simple: electrification is dramatically more efficient than burning fuels. In a fossil fuel-based system, more than two thirds of the primary energy input is lost as waste heat before it reaches any useful purpose. Electrify the same system and power it with renewables, and you can roughly halve total primary energy demand while cutting rejected energy by a similar margin.
He presented a thought experiment developed with Lawrence National Laboratory: what would happen if we electrified the current global energy system to the maximum extent possible using existing technology, then powered it entirely with renewables? The result is not a marginal improvement. It is a fundamental restructuring of how energy flows through the economy, with cascading benefits for air quality, resource use and resilience.
These are not theoretical possibilities. Rosenow pointed to Norway, where the transition to electric vehicles is now effectively complete for new sales. In February of this year, just 12 combustion engine cars were sold. All the rest were fully battery electric, with hybrids being squeezed out almost entirely. That shift happened within roughly a decade.
A parallel story unfolded in heating. Finland, Sweden and Norway have moved almost completely away from oil-based residential heating toward heat pumps, a transition that began in the 1970s in response to the energy price shocks of that era and has now reached the point where heat pump sales for single-family homes are essentially 100 percent of new installations across all three countries.
The explanation is not technological superiority alone, but a combination of low electricity costs and a tax framework that favours electrification rather than undermining it.
Industry is more electrifiable than anyone assumed
Industry has long been treated as the hardest sector to decarbonise, largely because of its need for high-temperature process heat. Rosenow challenged that assumption directly. A global analysis of over 1,600 energy scenarios found that, with existing technology, 90 percent of industrial process heat is technically electrifiable. Whether it is economically viable is a different question, but the technical barrier is far lower than commonly assumed.
The key variable is the ratio between electricity prices and gas prices. Where that ratio is favourable, as in Norway, electrified industrial technologies are widely deployed. Where it is not, as in the United Kingdom, penetration remains low despite the technology being readily available. The market will pivot once the operational savings exceed the capital investment costs. Getting the price ratio right is therefore the single most important lever governments can pull.
Policy as the missing piece
Much of Europe still overtaxes electricity relative to fossil fuels, a structural imbalance that works directly against electrification. Rosenow called for strategic, long-term industrial policy rather than patchwork measures. France and Canada have both put forward bold electrification strategies. Most other countries have not, and the European Commission’s forthcoming electrification plan, expected before the summer recess, will be watched closely as a potential turning point.
