BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Better energy connections across the European Union can save EU energy users up to 40 billion euros (29 billion pounds) per year, Europe's climate and energy boss said on Wednesday.
As it seeks to reduce the need for imported fossil fuel, especially from Russia, the European Commission on Wednesday published its strategy for an energy union with better grids and pipelines to improve energy sharing across the 28 member states.
The plan would cut costs, the Commission says, by increasing consumer options, integrating renewable supplies and reducing the need for expensive imports.
"Europe is losing up to 40 billion euros a year by not having a fully connected energy market," Climate Action and Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said, citing research carried out for the Commission.
With a population of some 500 million people, that would amount to around 80 euros per capita.
Canete added he was releasing a "country-by-country plan" to achieve a goal of ensuring cross-border links equate to at least 10 percent of a nation's power generation capacity by 2020.
The overall amount of investment needed in EU energy infrastructure is around 200 billion euros between now and 2020. Of this, the cost of reaching the 10 percent goal is roughly 40 billion, the Commission says, meaning it would be swiftly offset by the savings it foresees.
The Commission says 12 member states do not have enough connection to the rest of the EU electricity market: Britain, Cyprus, Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain.
It proposes to change that through a list of priority projects, entitled to faster planning procedures and some EU money that the Commission hopes will leverage much greater private investment.
Critics of the European Commission's energy union plans include Eurosceptics who say the EU executive is trying to wrest control over energy decisions from member states.
Green members of the European Parliament are also critical, saying the Commission is seeking to invest too much in new pipelines to diversify gas providers when wind and solar were the obvious way to increase security of supply.
Luxembourg Green politician Claude Turmes said the Commission was stimulating massive new investment in gas infrastructure instead of truly "questioning Europe's insane fossil fuel import dependency".
(Reporting by Barbara Lewis; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)