What if at the beginning of 2022, the EU would have been stored enough energy as to ignore the Russian gas unavailability threat? Would have the Ukrainian invasion happened?

Replacing currency with electricity may lead to solving the problem of insufficient power reserves for balancing and to supporting wholesale electricity trade, if large enough energy storage capacity will be available in the European interconnected system. In this configuration, energy storage capacity owners may act like banks, funding the system by discharging electricity and recovering the "loan" by charging, and the "interest" could be the amount of grid losses or more. Since most of the online balancing capacity is gas-fired, gas dependency will decrease, while integration of more renewables becomes possible.

The idea deserves further analysis; in this regard, delivery of an opportunity study is proposed. The study shall focus on investigating what energy storage technologies can be employed, what total investment effort we are talking about, who the interested financing parties might be, what “financing terms” may be considered and the list may continue. 

This study definitely needs an interdisciplinary team. What matters the most is comprehension of the dimension of the task and creativity of the team members in combining economics and IFI funding with deep knowledge of the European energy sector. 

 Natural Resources

 Creative Europe

 EU Macro-Regional strategies

 European Politics