The analysis argues that energy security does not require retreating into self-sufficiency, but rather building more diversified interdependence through multiple electricity links, particularly using HVDC technology. However, these links do not automatically deliver security; they remain exposed to concentration risks, cable failures, and bottlenecks in local grids.
The value of cross-border electricity links is increasing as tools for strengthening energy security and resilience, alongside their traditional roles in supporting markets, ensuring supply adequacy, and integrating renewable energy sources. The analysis argues that Europe’s lesson after the Russian invasion of Ukraine should not be the pursuit of complete energy independence, but a shift from dependence centered on a single supplier to interdependence among reliable partners and more diverse routes and sources.
The war led to a sharp rise in gas and electricity prices, making the slogan of energy independence politically understandable. But the problem, according to the argument presented in the article, was not European countries’ dependence on one another, but the fact that a large share of critical supplies was under the influence of a single party that became less reliable. The alternative is a system comprising a larger number of partners, more transport routes, diversified generation, and sufficient reserves so that the loss of a single supplier or corridor does not cause widespread disruption.
An Indicator from HVDC Projects
The pipeline of cross-border high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) projects offers an indication that this trend is continuing. RTE International’s inventory, published in July 2026, points to a large number of voltage-source converter projects, while limiting the count to cross-border projects produces approximately 60 potential international links. Most of these projects are concentrated in Europe and its immediate surroundings, the region where energy security has become more politically prominent.
The Baltic-German PowerLink stands out as an example. Lithuania, Latvia, and Germany continue to push the project toward obtaining the status of a project of common interest for the European Union, at a time when the Baltic states have disconnected from electricity systems linked to the Russian sphere and infrastructure protection has become a regional priority. Rather than reducing external links, the response has moved toward strengthening electricity connectivity with the West.
What Changes in Practice?
An electricity link differs from a fuel pipeline in the nature of the dependence it creates. A gas pipeline or liquefied natural gas terminal provides continuing value only when fuel arrives, leaving the importer exposed to commodity prices, supplier behavior, and fuel-market conditions. An electricity link, by contrast, connects systems that already contain generation, storage, demand, and other links, and electricity can generally flow in both directions.
This makes it possible to share hydropower, wind, solar, and nuclear generation, in addition to storage and dispatchable generation sources, across regions with different weather conditions. The existence of a link does not mean eliminating local resources, but rather expanding the portfolio of options available when demand or production changes.
This understanding is reflected in policy. ACER calls for stronger interconnection to support the use of renewable energy across borders, reduce dependence on fossil fuels, and improve resilience and security. The United Kingdom’s “Clean Flexibility Roadmap” also places international links within a broader supply-security portfolio that includes storage and demand flexibility. Accordingly, links are no longer presented solely as a means of benefiting from differences in wholesale electricity prices.
Interconnection Is Not an Automatic Guarantee of Security
The analysis does not attribute all interconnection projects to geopolitical shifts. Offshore wind, balancing renewable energy sources, grid congestion, price differences, resource adequacy, and market integration can justify the construction of HVDC links even in the absence of political tensions. In addition, developing most large links takes many years.
The more cautious conclusion is that geopolitical shocks have added security and resilience value to infrastructure that, in many cases, already had economic and climate-related justifications. But a single, massive cable can itself become a dangerous concentration point; submarine cables may also be disrupted or attacked, and poor weather conditions may occur simultaneously in neighboring countries. Internal grid bottlenecks may likewise prevent imported electricity from reaching demand centers.
Therefore, “strategic interdependence” depends on diversification: multiple partners and routes, local generation, storage, flexible demand, and an internal grid capable of accommodating flows. The useful benchmark is not to compare a single cable with a single local generating plant, but to compare the cost and flexibility of the full system the country would need in the absence of that link.
certi.news reading: The actual change is the redefinition of the value of electricity interconnection: from a commercial tool and a means of integrating renewables to an element of the energy-security portfolio as well. However, the source does not establish that all links are viable or protected; rather, it indicates that their success depends on diversification and the capacity of local grids. The questions of project maturity, failure rates, exposure to disputes, and technology selection remain decisive factors that potential-project figures alone do not answer.