What has long looked like a technical backlog in the electricity grid has now been exposed as a political and administrative failure with consequences for the green transition, investment, and the credibility of the state itself. That is the real significance of the report on Energinet’s expansion of the grid, delivered by the National Audit Office (Rigsrevisionen) and followed by comments from the Public Accounts Committee (Statsrevisorerne).
Because this is not just about cables, transformer stations and cumbersome processes. It is about the state’s own energy company having such serious problems expanding a critical part of the infrastructure that the Public Accounts Committee has called its management of the task questionable. At the same time, the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities is criticised for reacting too late, even though the warning signs had been clear for a long time.
That makes this more than an ordinary story about delays. It makes it a question of responsibility. And at the centre of that question stands one number as the starkest symbol of the scale of the problem: 2080.
When 2050 Starts to Slip
The National Audit Office writes that Energinet is currently completing around 120 kilometres of grid per year. If the 2050 target is to be met, that pace must rise to about 250 kilometres per year for the next 25 years. Otherwise, the expansion will not be completed by 2050, but closer to 2080. It is hard to imagine a more striking illustration of how far reality has drifted from political ambition.
What is striking is not only the calculation itself. It is also that the report leaves little sense that the required acceleration is anywhere close. Energinet does not appear to be on the verge of a breakthrough.
That is also why the criticism lands so hard. These are not minor fluctuations in a complex construction programme. Around 70 per cent of Energinet’s projects are delayed. Delayed projects take, on average, around 80 per cent longer than planned. And according to the Public Accounts Committee, the projects that are not delayed are generally newly launched. That points to a structural pattern.
When such a large share of the portfolio is slipping, and the delays are still growing, it becomes difficult to maintain the idea that this is merely a system under pressure. It begins to look like a system that is not functioning well enough.
Energinet has offered a long list of explanations. Regulatory processing. Internal factors. Network customers waiting to be connected. Bottlenecks. Resource constraints. More complex projects. Much of that may be true. Some of it is almost certainly true. But this is precisely where the National Audit Office’s criticism cuts deepest.
Can it be fixed from within?
The problem is not the lack of explanations. The problem is that the explanations are too broad and too vague to serve as a genuine management tool. The National Audit Office says the causes are not clear-cut and do not show clearly enough how Energinet can act to prevent future delays. “Regulatory processing” can cover several very different issues. “Internal factors” in Energinet can mean anything from skills and staffing to processes and priorities. That makes the explanations harder to translate into action.
An organisation can be good at explaining its problems without being good at solving them. And when the National Audit Office effectively says that Energinet only has a partial overview of the reasons behind the delays, it is hard not to read that as a criticism of management’s grip on the task itself.
But the problem does not stop with Energinet. The report is also a serious reminder that the ministry has held responsibility without acting quickly enough. The Ministry of Climate, Energy and Utilities was informed as early as March 2023 that about 40 per cent of projects were delayed. Later, it was repeatedly told that the grid was historically hard hit by delays and cost overruns. Even so, the National Audit Office concludes that the ministry reacted too late to the information it received through its oversight.
That is the part of the case that makes it politically dangerous. For a new minister, this will not simply be another difficult operational challenge. It will be a file in which the audit authorities have already established failures both in Energinet’s management and in the ministry’s oversight. Whoever takes the post after the government negotiations will inherit not just a strained electricity grid, but a documented systemic failure.
What does it mean for business?
For the business community, the implications are immediate. If the grid is not expanded fast enough, it becomes harder to realise investments in data centres, Power-to-X, green industry, electrification and new production facilities. That is true across the country, but it is felt especially sharply in places that have positioned themselves around green energy and energy-intensive investment. In other words, here.
For years, Denmark has benefited from the idea that green electricity, electrification and stable framework conditions could attract new companies and major investments. But that narrative becomes harder to sustain if the infrastructure meant to support it fails to arrive on time. And if the state cannot even manage that expansion properly, its credibility begins to crack.
This is where the report becomes even more interesting. The ministry has not calculated what Energinet’s delays mean for CO2 emissions or for the connection of new solar and wind farms. It says such impacts cannot be estimated precisely, partly because the consequences may pull in different directions. The ministry also points out that Denmark’s 2025 Climate Status and Projection showed an expected overperformance of around 1.5 million tonnes of CO2, and it assesses that the delays will not, overall, prevent the country from meeting its 70 per cent reduction target by 2030.
But when the state is criticised for serious delays in the infrastructure meant to carry the green transition, and still does not quantify the consequences more precisely, it is tempting to read that as a sign that it does not want the problem measured too clearly. That is my interpretation. But it is reinforced by the fact that the National Audit Office explicitly recommends that the ministry examine the consequences more closely in order to gain a clearer overview of factors that could affect the 2030 climate target.
A heavy burden for a new minister
Denmark wants to electrify more of its economy, attract more green industry and build more renewable energy. But if the grid only catches up decades later, then political targets, business plans and investment promises all become correspondingly more uncertain.
In that sense, the National Audit Office’s report is not simply a harsh criticism of Energinet. It is a warning that one of the most important preconditions for the green transition has become weaker than the state itself has long been willing to admit.
And the bill has now been passed on. To a new minister facing one of the biggest challenges for the next government. To companies waiting for capacity. To investors demanding certainty. And to a green transition that depends not on promises of expansion, but on actually delivering it.
