Plugged In: the energy news podcast
Coming from the heart of the Montel newsroom, Editor-in-Chief, Snjolfur Richard Sverrisson and his team of journalists explore the news headlines in the energy sector, bringing you in depth analysis of the industry’s leading stories each week.
Richard speaks to experts, analysts, regulators, and senior business leaders to the examine not just the what, but the why behind the decisions directing the markets and shaping the global transition to a green economy.
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Plugged In: the energy news podcast
Russian gas? “No, never again” says EU Energy Commissioner
It's been a busy first year for the EU Energy Commissioner Dan Jørgensen. The Iberian blackout, grid congestion, curtailment of renewable energy and a record number of negative prices. How does he plan to tackle some of these issues in 2026?
In this episode, Richard sits down with the EU´s top energy official in the heart of the European Commission to discuss the details of his grids package released earlier this week, his stance on the future of Russian gas supplies, and how he is trying to work with member states who oppose the ban.
Host: Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News
Contributor: Fatima Sadouki - Brussel's Reporter, Montel News
Guest: Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy
Editor: Oscar Birk
Producer: Sarah Knowles
Hello listeners, and welcome to Plugged In - The Energy News podcast from Montel, where we bring in the latest news issues and changes happening in the energy sector. In this episode, our penultimate one of 2025, we are pleased to bring you a special guest interview with one of the most important policy makers within the blocs energy sector, a top official who has said never again to Europe, taking Russian and gas. A key figure who is passionate about strengthening Europe's energy security and self-sufficiency, and someone who has laid out his priority to step up and change Europe's grid network. This is of course the European Commissioner for Energy. I sat down with Dan Jorgenson and we discussed how he's planning to work with member states opposed to the ban on imports of Russian gas and what his plans are for tackling Europe's grid challenges. Before my interview, I caught up with our correspondent outside the European Commission Building in Brussels. I'm standing outside the Berlaymont, the headquarters of the European Commission in the heart of Brussels. This is where energy decisions are taken that affect millions of Europeans. Joining me is Fatima Sadouki, whose Brussels correspondent from Montel. A warm welcome to you Fatima.
Fatima Sadouki - Brussel's Reporter, Montel News:Hi, Richard.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:It's been a busy year for the commission. What, what's going on at the moment?
Fatima Sadouki - Brussel's Reporter, Montel News:It has been very busy indeed, and it's a good time to be here because this week we saw some major developments regarding the European Union's plans to phase out Russian gas imports. It has also been very busy in planning and introducing new measures to modernize it's electricity grids.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:So phasing out Russian gas, this has been on the agenda for quite some time. What are the challenges involved in stopping the flow of Russian fossil fuels coming to Europe?
Fatima Sadouki - Brussel's Reporter, Montel News:Well, the agreement we saw consisting introducing permanent legislation to say never again to Russian gas. But there are still questions about the implementation of these measures and the full enforcement.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:And you mentioned grids. What's the grids package all about?
Fatima Sadouki - Brussel's Reporter, Montel News:It's expected to be a set of measures with different purposes, but essentially to tackle congestion issues, curtailment, better integrate renewables and find incentives to develop new grid and interconnectors.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Thank you, Fatima. So let's hear now from the European Commission of Energy and what he has to say about his first year in the job. A warm welcome to the Plugged in Podcast, commissioner Jergensen,
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:and thank you so much.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:It's great to have you on. You've been one year in the job. What is the achievement that you're most proud of so far?
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:I think certainly the fact that we now finally are able to close the taps on Russian gas is extremely important. We've been dependent on Russian energy for decades, so it's a very big decision. Obviously. It's also, by the way, unprecedented that we take steps like this against any country. The European Union has never done it before. But it has been necessary. We can no longer accept that Putin is weaponizing energy against us. He's blackmailed the member states of the European Union, and of course, also when we buy energy in Russia. That comes with a prize because that's money into the war chest of Putin. So I'm extremely pleased that we have now said stop, no more. And not only have we said no more, we've said never again because this is a prohibition, a ban, meaning that even when there is a peace, we hope it'll come sooner than later. Even when that happens, we will not start buying Russian gas again.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:That I want to return to the sub subject of Russian gas. But what? Challenges lie ahead.
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:One of the next very big challenges that we will tackle is the lack of the physical infrastructure in our energy system. So I will present a grids package, which will hopefully help make Europe greener, faster, lowering prices and also making us independent. We need to fundamentally step up and change the way that we plan our infrastructure expansion now. I usually compare this to roads. So if we imagine we needed 200 roads for transport to connect Europe, and we only had a hundred and of those hundred, we only allowed cars to drive on 50 of them. That's the situation we have in our grids right now. So we need to utilize what we have much better and we need to expand it quite significantly.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Now you mentioned the Russian phase out the phase outta Russian gas. But how will the European Union strike the bands between security supply and affordable gas prices?
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:Sure. The first thing that I need to say here is that we have actually succeeded since February 22 in reducing our gas consumption quite significantly. And this is something that we will keep doing. So every year we bring down our consumption. So I think with around 15 or 16 billion cubic meters of gas, how much is that? Last year we imported 34, 36 BCM from Russia. So every year we bring down our consumption with about half of what we used to get from Russia. So that's of course the most important thing to mention. Second is, of course, that we need to diversify our suppliers. So we are doing that. We are speaking to Canada, the US, Qatar, others, even internally in the European Union, we will also be able to get more gas from member states. So Romania will be able to deliver more gas in the short term. On the long term. We, we are in a process where we will be moving away from natural gas in a way that means that we practically will not be using any. So this is of course, something that we need to keep in mind also when both, when ramping up production internally in the EU as some countries are doing, which is necessary on the short term. But also when making contracts with partners around the planet that we very much appreciate this right now. Because if we didn't have it, then we would have serious security of supply issues. Prices would go up significantly. But we are in a process of transitioning away from using fossils. It's not sustainable for us to import for almost 400 billion euros worth of fossils every year. Instead, we need an energy system where we produce our own energy, renewable energy. That's both cheaper and also better for our independence.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. That's very clear commissioner. What can the commission do to support member states that are more vulnerable to the phase out and actually quite opposed to the phase out like for example, Hungary and Slovakia?
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:I would of course have liked if what we are doing would have the full support of all member states, but I do of course acknowledge that there is two member states that are not happy with this. So it's my job to help those member states have security of supply and as slow prices as we can. Even though they are against the legislation, and so for me I take that quite seriously. So the governments might be against this but the citizens of Hungary still of course need to have heat in their homes and and that we will help make sure can happen. So we are working very closely with all countries affected in the region. Diversifying the supplies looking at what can be done. Overall to bring down consumption become more energy efficient. But primarily it's about working with neighbors on making sure the supply is there.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. So the EU is still importing Russian gas LNG and there's some Russian gas still flowing Germany, Belgium. How can you make sure that there are no loopholes in the kind of, in the implementation of the phase out or, so that there are no flaws and that absolutely is a stop.
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:Yeah. So this is a very complex market. So we have a lot of LNG coming in, in liquid form, so LNG, and then we have for a few countries also Russian gas coming in via pipes. We have some guests that's being bought on short-term contracts, some guests that's being bought on long-term contracts. So all of these things, of course, we've had to take into consideration when making the plans to phase out and when making the bans. And already on the short term six months after the legislation enters into a force, we will be able to stop the short term contract. So that's about one third of the guess that we are getting Now, the rest will then follow gradually. So in, in September 27 we will actually stop all of it, but there'll be pockets until September 27. This is a fundamental blow to Kremlin and Russia because now even though we've reduced our import quite substantially, we, we got 45% of our gas from Russia in 22. Now we get between 10 and 13%. Even despite that, we still import for more than a billion every month. So of course it's important to do this as fast as possible. And as you said, it's important that we control this, that we have sanctions if somebody's trying to circumvent the rules. But as with all other types of EU legislation, we take very seriously the enforcement of this, and I would say that on this legislation we even more radical in our control measures than we normally are because this is also about war and peace. There's big money involved, so we know that there's a risk. We know that Russia does not have any problems with breaking rules so we need to make sure that it does not happen.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:And you mentioned that the door is closed or closing rapidly on Russian gas. If there were to be a peace deal, would that, would you that be reconsidered in any way?
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:No, this is this is a never again. We should not make the mistake repeat the mistakes of the past and it would be a mistake to start buying gas again from Russia. Then becoming dependent of Russia again, and also helping Putin refill his war chest so that he can maybe use it somewhere else in the future. That would be a very, in my opinion, wrong decision. So this is why also I'm happy that this is a legislative proposal. This is a ban. It's not a sanction. So sanctions are effective and sanctions can work fast. That's, and sanctions has unanimity behind it. So they are, they're broadly supported. All of these things are good and that's also why I, of course, support sanctions. But the reason why legislation is better than sanctions here is that, that will not have to be renewed every six months and it's not connected to the war. As such, these are trade measures. So they will not change unless we decide to change them. And if we decide to change them, that will mean that the commission would have to put forward a proposal to do. I'm not inclined to do that, to say the least. I will not do that. And after that, even if I decided and we decided as a college to do it in in, in the Union, then it would have to go through the co legislators. So qualified majority, both in Council and Parliament. So yes, this is a very firm, no, and it's a very firm, never again.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Yep. That's a very clear message commissioner. Absolutely. I want to talk briefly about the, you mentioned the phase out of fossil fuels and the energy transition. We are seeing in some member states, there's a bit of a backlash against, you know, against the greening of the energy system in terms of windmills, people protesting against infrastructure close to their homes, which is understandable in some ways, but how can the European Union combat these kind of, this kind of backlash or this feeling, the pendulums could be swinging against the green transition.
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:So I do agree, That we do have challenges but let me start by underlining that actually, it's going pretty fast in the right direction. We are deploying record numbers of renewables every year. So last year it was 78 gigawatts of new renewables deployed. This year, it'll be 89. Last year, for the first time ever, we produced more electricity from solar energy than from coal. So renewables are being deployed in a record pace for the benefit of consumers because it leads to lower energy prices. The International Energy Agency has estimated that from 21 to 23, the European consumers save 100 billion euros or newly deployed renewables alone. So to that point that you made. It's very important to, to start by saying, it is going fast. On the other hand, maybe because it's going fast, more and more people will also see it affecting their everyday lives. And although I will argue that for most of them, it'll be an advantage because they will see the energy bills going down and they will see also. There will be less blackouts if we're better connected and have more renewables. There. There's so many things that, that, that are advantages. But still we do see some opposition and I can also understand it because it, some people might think it, it runs their view from where they're living or they might have some concerns on security or whatever. All of these concerns needs to be dealt with locally. I certainly believe that many countries have different types of schemes that you can. Schemes, it sounds like something dodgy actually, doesn't it? But it's not it's actually, it's the state being able to give or make rules for having some sort of a compensation. So the country I know best, Denmark, for instance, if you live close to a wind turbine or solar plant. Then you will get a financial compensation which is a huge success. Other places we've seen here that there are possibilities or even demands that locals have the opportunity to be a part of the project also financially, so that they will get also a part of this the revenue. And other places, again, you get cheaper or even free energy. So there are many ways of making this a better deal also for the people very directly involved because they live next to these next to these production facilities. Then again. One of the reasons why we are also very much supporting offshore wind. There many reasons for that. Also an energy engineer will tell you why there's many advantages but it's also a very simple advantage, which is that's then taking the production out of sight of citizens because we put it out there on they're underwater.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Fish don't vote.
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:They don't vote. That's, and that is true. And also I need, we need some perspective in this again. An example from my own country where solar panels are being discussed. We have some political parties arguing that we don't want what they call "iron fields" so used to be farmers fields that are now solar panels, but if we look at the percentage of fields that will actually be used for this or the percentage of the geography of my country, we are speaking less than 1%. So really, it's quite small numbers compared to how important it is. And I'll also say that a big coal power plant is not very soothing to their eyes either. And then I also think it's about arguing the big picture telling the big narrative. Because at the end of the day, of course, this is a political discussion and it's about priorities. I personally and we in the commission prioritize our energy independence and our security. We prioritize lowering the prices as to many citizens. This really has become a struggle in Europe to pay your energy bills. 47 million people in 2023 were not able to adequately heat their homes because of the high prices. And climate change is also still high on the agenda for good reasons. Europe is the continent that's heating the fastest in the world. We have people dying already. Now, this is not something that might happen in the future. This is not some threat for our future. This is a present reality. We see floods, extreme weather phenomena that is hurting people and that needs to stop. So for all of these reasons the green transition and needs to happen and it needs to happen fast.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Yep. And I think, I think there is a case to be made. I personally find offshore wind quite graceful,
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:sure. Oh, I agree.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:And but I think there is a case to be made that, you can outline the benefits to these kind of renewable projects, to local communities in terms of, as you've said here in terms of financing, hospitals, schools, local communities. But, so I think there's a case for local politicians and companies to, to do that. But I want to move on to the grid,
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:just one final point for that, because you're very right. But there's also the possibility of making bigger industrial areas. So you say, okay, we, we will have our wind farms in this area of our community so that, we don't spread it as much as they do as well other places, it's better to spread it, but the places where you really put it on, on a more restricted geographical, foral area, you can also then plan to put the industry around it in those areas also. And a lot of countries have had success with that.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. So I think I'd like to move on. You talk about the grids package, so I'd like to go into more detail there. What, why is the new grids package important to you and, but mostly to Europe's economy and it, and its climate goals?
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:So we do have too much congestion now. Too many bottlenecks. Again, when I served as Minister for Climate Energy in Denmark, I would sometimes have a little bit of hard time when I was asked to explain why is it that sometimes some of our wind turbines are not running when the wind is blowing. The reason for this was that, that they were shut down on purpose so that they didn't produce energy because they were supposed to deliver the energy to the German grid. And the German grid was congested. So the German consumers paid the Danish wind turbine companies to not deliver the energy. That is of course not very rational. It's because at peak hours the congestion sym too big. So that's just a very concrete, small example of what it is that we're trying to do. We're trying to connect our energy systems in a way that the energy will flow freely, and this will bring down prices significantly. Because I mentioned earlier how the deployment of new renewables is a cornerstone in our strategy to bring down the prices. But another cornerstone is us being better connected. We save already more than 30 billion euros a year on being as connected as we are because we are actually compared to other parts of the world, pretty well connected. But the potential is much, much bigger. And the danger if we don't do it, is also quite significant. We will lose huge amounts of money every year if we don't manage to, to solve these problems. And by the way, probably I should have started by saying that. The transition that we are going to have, depends on this. If we don't have the physical infrastructure, this is about moving electrons and molecules and if the physical infrastructure is not there to do it, it'll not happen.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. And in terms of, you know, you mentioned curtailments of wind power in Denmark. Yeah. How can these be better tackled do you think and negative prices? I think, that's obviously a growing phenomenon in certain in certain EU member states and beyond. What can be done to tackle these kind of issues commissioner?
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:Well, there's, There's many things that we need to do. I think probably the overall planning in Europe of our energy systems and where we need more interconnectors and where we have cross border projects is of course something that I deal with a lot since this is a European issue. Right now even though logically speaking, everybody I think will see that this is at European issue, it's something that crosses borders, argo you cannot just solve these problems nationally. Nonetheless, it is up to the member states today to take the initiative, to talk to their neighbors, to negotiate, and then maybe find out that they want a project. And it is also happening to some extent, but it's happening way too slow. And we have a lot of bottlenecks out there that are really hurting all of Europe. What President Von der Leyen said in her state of the Union was, we need energy highways. We need to get rid of these big bottlenecks and we will support it from Europe's side with money. So we've decided that in next year, sorry, in the next long term budget, the next MFF we will allocate five times as much money for these types of projects as we did in the last MFF. Last, the present MFF just under 6 billion. The next one just under 30 billion. So that's certainly one of the most important things we will do. Then there's the permitting, to get permits to both do the production of install the production, so the wind turbines, the solar panels, so on. That takes a long time. But also the grids, that's also a very cumbersome and slow process, and we need to do something about that also. And finally some of these projects are often not happening because countries cannot agree on the cost sharing. So we need better rules for cost sharing. Also, and then of course, this all of this also connects to some of the issues that you touched upon. How are the tariffs set? How can we exploit the fact that sometimes you have a lot of very cheap energy and other times you lose, you lag it. Here again, connection is key word, but also storage is a key word. Also having cost reflective tariffs is necessary. So for instance, one way of creating incentives for using the energy when it's cheap, is tariffs. And on the other hand, using less when it's not that cheap.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Absolutely. You have to incentivize
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:incentives is the key.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:A final question, commissioner. There was a major incident in Spain and Portugal in April this year. What are the lessons learned from the Iberian blackouts do you think and that you can, we can draw at this stage? I know it's the final report is now yet, yeah what can we draw from that?
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:I think the experts have been quite clear in saying that they cannot be quite clear. No I'm teasing a little bit, but it's, I asked them to explain it to me in a way that I would be able to explain it to somebody like you in 30 seconds and I got a 10 minute answer. Okay. It's local problems that can be solved, very technical nature. And of course we need to make sure that those conclusions are translated into something both that we and the public can relate to. And I haven't seen demands or recommendations to policy makers yet from the experts if they indeed present them, then we will of course look very seriously at that. But I will say as a more general comment to the danger of blackouts. I think most experts will agree, if not all, that one of the main things we need to do to bring down the risk of blackouts, is being better connected. Decentralized energy systems that are very well connected are really the best thing we can do. And we have to remember that this is about security on so many different levels. It's about the fact that okay, sometimes, there's a bad weather and cable is broken. Okay? We know about this. This is something that we are usually dealing with, but we, in the future, we'll have climate change. Already now we have climate change that can influence our energy systems. And we have to admit, we also under another type of pressure and threats from Russia right now could be other actors in the future that does not wish us well. So there's a physical, there's a physical of course sabotage going on, and there's cyberspace attacks going on all the time. So that needs to be incorporated in everything we do to make sure that we safeguard, to make sure that we have as resilient systems as we can.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:That's very clear and the answer is more interconnection.
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:Exactly. Yes.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Thank you very much. Thank you for being a guest on Plugged In - the Energy News podcast from Montel.
Dan Jorgensen - European Commissioner for Energy:I thank you so much.
Richard Sverrisson - Editor-in-Chief, Montel News:Our new listeners thanks for listening to this episode of Plugged In. If you enjoy this discussion, please like rate and follow to make sure you get the latest podcast episodes as soon as we release them every Friday. We'd also love to read your reviews of the podcast. It helps us to keep up to date with what you our listeners think of our podcast and what content you want to receive more of. Finally, you can head to montelnews.com for more news and analysis from our team of journalists across Europe and beyond. See you next time.
