Project

In the EU, distribution and industrial transformers account for around 38% of the 144 TWh/year electricity losses and represent a large share of the installed population. Despite stricter Ecodesign rules (2015, 2021), only about 25–30% of the technical savings potential has been realised through natural replacement, due to very long lifetimes (often >40 years) and replacement practices. EU‑TRACE addresses this gap by:

• Reviewing existing policies and best practices across regulated and non‑regulated markets
• Co‑creating policy recommendations with national authorities, regulators, Distribution System Operators, manufacturers and industrial users
• Developing an accessible impact model for policy design, monitoring, evaluation and reporting
• Integrating circular economy and end‑of‑life aspects (high‑value recyclable materials, design‑for‑recycling)
• Facilitating data collection to underpin credible, comparable projections and assessments. The project targets an additional 2.1 TWh/year of electricity savings over 20 years through accelerated replacement pathways across Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy and Belgium.

Design and test a suite of policy options to accelerate replacement of inefficient distribution and industrial transformers, including approaches suited to regulated network assets and to privately owned equipment.

• Provide Member States with an accessible transformer policy impact model to project energy and greenhouse gas impacts, and to support monitoring, verification and reporting.
• Develop streamlined deemed‑savings methods and measurement and verification approaches tailored to transformer renovation and fleet impacts.
• Integrate circularity and end‑of‑life considerations into policy design, aligning with the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the EU Circular Economy Action Plan.
• Facilitate knowledge exchange among policymakers, regulators, Distribution System Operators, manufacturers, industry users and experts.
• Support replication of the approach to additional Member States and related grid components and applications

As EU TRACE has just started, results will be reported as they become available.

Planned outputs include:

• State of the art and market analysis reports on transformer technologies, efficiency trends and fleet characterisation (utility owned and user owned), and a report on end of life and recycling practices.
• Policy recommendations co created with national and EU level stakeholders, addressing both regulated and private contexts.
• Transformer policy impact model and documentation for scenario analysis of energy, greenhouse gas and cost impacts, plus user oriented examples and guidance.
• Policy support package (concise briefs, guidance, and capacity building materials), with translations for national dissemination.

Public deliverables, policy briefs, the model and support materials will be made available on the project website as they are released.

1^st September 2025 - 29^th February 2028 (30 months)

• European Commission (LIFE Programme — LIFE‑2024‑CET‑POLICY), 
• managed by CINEA Grant agreement: 101215320 — LIFE24‑CET‑EU‑TRACE

• IEECP – Institute for European Energy and Climate Policy (Netherlands) – Coordinator
• European Copper Institute (United Kingdom)
• CRES – Centre for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving (Greece)
• Universidad Pontificia Comillas (Spain)
• ISR UC – Instituto de Sistemas e Robótica, University of Coimbra (Portugal)
• E.DSO – European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids (Belgium)
• ECD SRL (Italy)

to be announced