Renewables in the EU energy market

In June, the European Commission issued a communication on “Renewable Energy: a major player in the European energy market”.

With reference to the ‘Energy roadmap 2050’, the introduction of this communication states: “Regardless of scenario choice, the biggest share of energy supply in 2050 will come from renewable energy. Strong growth in renewables is the so-called ‘no regrets’ option. However, despite the strong framework to 2020, the Roadmap suggests that growth of renewable energy will drop after 2020 without further intervention due to their higher costs and barriers compared to fossil fuels.”

The communication proposes a package of measures to readdress the challenge related to the current situation. The discussion of these proposals within the framework of the other institutions – notably the European Parliament – promises to be interesting.

In this communication, the Commission seems to confer higher importance to renewables directly producing electricity than to those producing heat. The reason to this may be that the energetic balance of the last ones is more difficult to set up and that there is hardly any market for heating. This is particularly the case for heat pump technologies which have a promising future, but need some electricity to produce heat.

Jean-Claude Charrault
Director General