- A new Electrification Competitiveness Index covering 16 countries puts China, France and Spain in the top group and places the United States in the “risk of stalling” group.
- The US has more than 2 TW of generation and storage waiting in interconnection queues, against roughly 1.3 TW of existing generating capacity.
- Across most countries, policy and enabling conditions run ahead of actual deployment, a gap the index’s authors say will be a key focus at COP31.
The index grades each country on two axes, deployment on the ground and the enabling conditions behind it, and its top ‘solid foundation’ group pairs strong deployment with strong enablers, with France and Spain scoring well on grid performance and clean power shares.
The electrification competitiveness index matters because it measures something narrower and more practical than headline renewable capacity: whether an economy is actually converting its energy use to electricity, and whether the grid, prices, and policy environment let companies do it at speed. A country can add record solar capacity and still stall on electrification if its grid cannot connect new load or its electricity prices punish switching from gas.
How the electrification competitiveness index sorts 16 countries into four groups
The index sorts countries by deployment score against enabler score. The top group, labeled “solid foundation,” combines relatively strong deployment with strong enablers. The second group has enablers ahead of deployment, meaning the policy is in place but the build-out lags. The third group shows deployment at or above the halfway mark with enablers below the median, a combination the authors read as momentum at risk. The fourth group trails on both measures.
| Group | Countries | What defines it |
|---|---|---|
| Solid foundation | China, France, Spain | Strong deployment and strong enablers; China has the highest deployment score |
| Potential for take-off | Germany, India, Italy, Poland, UK | Enablers ahead of deployment; UK has the largest policy-to-delivery gap |
| Risk of stalling | US, Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, South Korea | Deployment at or above halfway, enablers below the median |
| Early-stage adoption | Indonesia, Philippines, South Africa | Below halfway on both measures; clean power 18 to 23% of generation |
China’s lead rests on coordinated grid investment, industrial policy, and incentives, according to the index. France and Spain score well on grid performance and clean power shares. In all three top-group countries, electricity prices are more competitive against gas than in most of the other countries assessed, which is the single most important enabler for a business deciding whether to electrify a process.
What a queue 1.5 times the grid means for US electrification
The most striking US figure in the index is the interconnection queue. More than 2 TW of generation and storage is waiting to connect to the US grid, compared with roughly 1.3 TW of existing generating capacity. Dividing the two gives a queue equal to about 154% of the entire existing fleet. That is not a pipeline problem in the usual sense; it is a grid-connection system carrying a backlog larger than the system it serves.
The index attributes the US position to federal policy reversals combined with grid bottlenecks. Policy reversals change the economics of projects already in development, while queue delays push their delivery dates outward. Together, they explain why a country with strong deployment so far can still land in the “risk of stalling” group: the enablers that sustained past progress are weakening while the delivery system is congested.
The same arithmetic exposes the gap in the early-stage group. Grid investment in Indonesia, the Philippines, and South Africa sits below 0.4% of GDP, against a 0.65% average across the 16 countries assessed. That is at least 38% below the sample average, before accounting for the fact that those grids also carry the smallest clean power shares: 18% of generation in Indonesia and South Africa, and 23% in the Philippines. Electrification without grid investment and clean power simply moves emissions from tailpipes and boilers to power stations.
Europe’s version of the same gap: policy ahead of delivery
Europe’s problem, as the index frames it, is the mirror image of America’s. In the “potential for take-off” group, enabling conditions outrun deployment. The UK has the largest gap between policy and delivery in the sample, and the price signal explains why: electricity costs UK industry around five times as much as gas per unit of energy, which makes electrification an expensive choice even where policy encourages it.
Germany’s constraint is different but equally concrete: a grid connection backlog measured in hundreds of gigawatts. Permits and projects exist, but the grid cannot absorb them at the pace policy implies. Both cases illustrate the index’s central finding, which is that policy and enabling conditions run ahead of deployment across most countries. Writing a target is easier than rebuilding a grid, repricing electricity against gas, or clearing a connection queue.
The finding has a direct read-across to the US market. Our Q3 2026 US EV sales analysis showed hybrids outselling battery EVs by more than two to one, a pattern consistent with an electrification story that is broadening into cheaper, easier steps rather than accelerating on its hardest ones. And our analysis of China’s solar manufacturing standards shows the industrial-policy side of the same competition: China is not only deploying faster, it is setting the efficiency floor for the equipment the rest of the world buys.
Electrification combined with clean power cuts fossil fuel dependence, exposure to volatile fuel prices, and air pollution, and the index’s authors say it will be a key focus at COP31. The logic is that climate negotiations have spent years on generation targets, while the harder work, connecting load, pricing electricity competitively with gas, and building grids, has lagged. An index that scores delivery against enablers gives negotiators a way to name that lag country by country.
Whether the index changes anything depends on whether governments treat the enabler scores as a to-do list. For the US, that list is grid interconnection reform and policy stability. For the UK, it is the electricity-to-gas price ratio. For Germany, it is clearing the connection backlog. For the early-stage group, it is grid investment as a share of GDP. Those are unglamorous, specific, and measurable, which is precisely why they are useful.
