White Paper on Renewable Energies

10Mar
1998

MEP Rolf Linkohr, emphasized in his introductory statement that a cross-party consensus in favour of the promotion of renewable energy sources exists within the European Parliament.
The European Union took the huge step in committing itself in Kyoto to reduce 6 greenhouse gases by 8% (respectively to 1990) until 2008-2012. This target can be reached by saving energy through new technologies or renewable energies. But actually it has to be realized against the market as energy, especially fossil energy, is very cheap. As 95% of renewables are biomass and hydro power, other sources like wind and photovoltaics must increase significantly. He has been asking for a clear strategy and a dialogue between Industry, Commission and Parliament to confront especially the problems of financing renewables.

Mr Rolf Bierhoff, main speaker of the evening and Chairman of the Energy Policy and Energy Economics Section of Eurelectric/Unipede, considered renewable energies as a highly actual and important subject. He assured that the European Electricity Industry is fully aware of its responsibility to achieve the goals the Commission outlined in its White Paper, namely to reduce CO2 emissions, to save fossil fuel and to decrease dependence on imported fuels.

But he also pointed out that the major part of renewable energies, despite being subsidised, is not competitive and the increase of the share of renewables from 6 to 12% till 2010 as proposed in the White Paper may be a too ambitious goal. He warned especially against an expectation in the public which could not be realistically satisfied. Achieving these 12% is impossible without more regulation which is contrary to liberalisation measures already taken. Promotion of renewables can only be made within the rules of the liberalized market because wider subsidies will lead to trade distortions in the concerned sector and possibly financial burdens. Mr Bierhoff underlined the view of the European Commission: the principle of subsidiarity should provide the framework which allows each state to develop its own optimal strategy for the achievement of this objective.

Furthermore he mentioned that apart from increasing renewable energies for electricity generation, there are also other means at one’s disposal to reduce CO2 emissions such as more efficient technologies on the demand side, and a higher efficiency through the use of gas-fired power plants (60%, almost the double of some old conventional power plants), nuclear energy and combined heat and power plants on the supply side.

He said that the so called “green tariffs” to allow the customer to decide if he wishes to pay more for certain cleaner energy supplies needs more evaluation at the EU level. Financing renewables with an energy tax should not be taken into account, as it goes against the intention of liberalizing the market to have lower energy prices.

Renewables do not provide stable base load supply. Therefore electricity suppliers must provide back-up which represents higher costs.

He outlined the doubts of Eurelectric for the timing of an European directive on network access for electricity from renewable sources of energy as the electricity directive is still not fully implemented. In their opinion, Article 8,3 already provides a legal basis to give priority to the generation from renewable energies.

He concluded by calling on the EU to promote the exchange of information so that misguided trends can be avoided and everyone can learn from what has already been done elsewhere.
MEP Mechtild Rothe, Rapporteur for the White Paper on Renewable Energies in the European Parliament, pointed out that renewables should be promoted for their employment potential. She is in favour of an EU Directive in order to achieve market penetration and noted that she has different views from Eurelectrics. In her opinion one reason for the current low price of conventional energy is that external costs are not included.

She defended the German model as costs for renewable energies would go down with more production and thus stimulate competitiveness.

In the EU-MEDA-Program lies a big potential. Indeed one could use some of the guidelines of this program for renewable energies. No one is expecting that in medium term 100% of energy will be generated by renewables but it is important in the context of Co2-reductions and environmental protection that a new energy mix is reached.

Concerning the problem of financing, she said the huge volume may be provided by private capital as well as public funds.

Mr Fabrizzio Caccia Dominioni, Director at the European Commission, DG XVII, said renewables help to meet the EU objectives of security of supply and environmental protection. The third objective, competitiveness, depends on the types of renewables. Some are already competitive, others are not. But thanks to the technological progress they can become it in a not too distant future. He confirmed that the main task is to help renewables to penetrate into the electricity market and that now ways and means have to be chosen to enhance more and more their competitiveness.

At the moment, the Commission is evaluating the various models of the Member States they use in order to promote the access of renewables to the electricity grid. He highlighted that the benefits of renewables are very significant, implying the reduction of CO2 emissions and less import of energy (could be reduced by some 17% by 2000) and therefore better security of supply. Improving security of supply should not be underestimated as the EU dependency on imports (much of these from politically unstable regions) is expected to raise from 50 to 70% by 2020.

He emphasized also the significance of renewables in more peripheric and less accessible regions. Through this advantage benefits in terms of regional and local development can be made and isolated regions can catch up and become more competitive.

As MEP Rothe mentioned, he considered also that thanks to this strategy an important number of jobs can be created. At the end of his contribution he asked for more private investment in this sector thus EU funding will represent a very limited part of the whole.