EU Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia has provoked a hot debate in Brussels this summer, by proposing to authorise state aid for nuclear power. This comes at the same time that the European Commission is reflecting on how to reduce subsidies for renewables, in line with their increasing maturity. Hughes Belin reports from Brussels. … [Read more...]
The three ages of Europe’s single electricity market
It is still far from perfect and has been painfully slow in taking shape, but an EU-wide power market has now emerged. Jean-Michel Glachant, Director of the European University Institute's Florence School of Regulation where he holds the Loyola de Palacio Chair, nevertheless warns that renewable energy and a “smarter” grid remain challenges to its further development. Photo by Filter Forge via Flickr … [Read more...]
EU internal energy market top priority for Lithuania
By Sonja van Renssen and Hughes Belin Expectations hang heavy over the EU’s autumn agenda for energy and climate policy. The internal energy market, grid investments, the broken EU Emission Trading Scheme, the future of nuclear, a dogged debate over indirect land-use change (ILUC), and a new climate and energy policy for 2030 are only just held at bay by July’s unusually balmy weather here in Brussels. Sonja van Renssen and Hughes Belin look … [Read more...]
Integrating energy and climate policy for low-carbon growth in Europe
Europe’s efforts to control emissions are failing, yet the necessary technologies are already here – decarbonising the power system and then using it to run more of our economy is the key, say Johannes Meier, CEO of the European Climate Foundation, and Arne Mogren, Director of the European Climate Foundation’s Power Programme and Member of the Energy Roadmap 2050 ad hoc Advisory Group. Photo: Avedøre power plant, Denmark (by Martin Nicolaj … [Read more...]
Report: Poland can handle higher carbon prices
A new report from Oliver Sartor of CDC Climat Research and Thomas Spencer of IDDRI (Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations) shows that the impact of higher carbon prices will not drive the energy-intensive industry out of Poland. Photo: Patnow coal power station (photo: Ecotist) … [Read more...]
It is too early to give up on Nabucco!
The failure of Nabucco West is the result of a lack of strategic guidance and the inability of the Nabucco consortium and its shareholders to deliver on the market policy expectations of both Governments and societies in their respective countries. But it is too simplistic to say that the choice by the Shah Deniz II Consortium for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) was made purely out of “commercial” considerations, argues Peter Poptchev, who has … [Read more...]
Europe’s unresolved energy versus climate policy dilemma
The creation of a pan-European energy market is being undermined by member states’ reluctance to align their national renewable energy policies, or to rely on their neighbours for back-up capacity, writes David Buchan, Senior Research Fellow of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. According to Buchan, “the Commission now has to take a very strong stand if it is to regain control over the forces of disintegration that it failed to anticipate … [Read more...]
Op-ed: BusinessEurope’s can’t do attitude
Brook Riley of the Climate Justice and Energy Team of Friends of the Earth Europe sent us a letter on what he regards as BusinessEurope's dragging-its-feet attitude towards EU climate policy. He suspects its BusinessEurope’s goal "to obstruct, to delay and to create doubt in the minds of policymakers about the need to address global warming". Climate change is truly a life-and-death challenge for all of us. With such high stakes, it’s … [Read more...]
End of Nabucco – end of Southern Gas Corridor?
Now that the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) was (apparently) chosen to be the preferred route to carry gas from the Shah Deniz II field in Azerbaijan to Europe, the EU flagship pipeline project Nabucco has effectively been killed. Agata Loskot-Strachota, Energy Policy Expert at the Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW) in Warsaw and Janek Lasocki, Advocacy Coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations in London, discuss – in five … [Read more...]
The internal energy market must be linked with global competitiveness
Companies in the EU face significantly higher energy prices than their competitors and the situation is getting worse, writes Fernand Felzinger, President of the International Federation of Industrial Energy Consumers (IFIEC) Europe. Felzinger argues that increasing the carbon price would be a disaster for Europe’s energy-intensive industries at a time when it needs to re-industrialise. Photo: Aluminum concrete forms in Hong Kong … [Read more...]
Two decades behind schedule, we need to re-think the single energy market
The EU has made progress in integrating its markets, but there is still a long way to go, argues Jorge Vasconcelos, founder of the Council of European Energy Regulators and Member of the Energy Roadmap 2050 ad hoc Advisory Group. Europe needs a reinvented energy market and technological developments can help that to happen. “Strong wind and sunshine can literally blow conventional electricity markets to pieces if high penetration rates of wind … [Read more...]
Energy Post Reviews (I)
In this space we will regularly review new publications – to keep you abreast of what is going in energy markets – and hopefully save you some time. This first installment of our Review Service discusses four recent reports that deal with the manifold problems in the (European) electricity sector. They even offer some advice – but not much. Photo: azza bazoo … [Read more...]
ENTSOG’s big plan for the European gas market
European transmission system operators are building the network for the gas flows of the future – but will there be any gas flowing in Europe ten years from now? At a workshop in Riga in March 2013 organised by ENTSOG (the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Gas), representatives from the gas industry discussed the implications of ENTSOG’s Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP), which was adopted in February. The participants … [Read more...]
EU gets powerful mandate to regulate shale gas
The EU has received its strongest endorsement yet to push ahead and issue legislative proposals to control the extraction of shale gas: an official 3-month public consultation shows that “a large majority” of citizens believe Europe lacks adequate legislation on this front and that the EU should do something about it. The surprisingly strong support for enhanced EU oversight comes despite the fact that half the respondents come from Europe’s … [Read more...]
Reflections on a ravaged EU energy sector (plus some boardroom tips)
The CEO’s of Europe’s major energy companies seem to be in an unenviable position. They complain that they are facing a ‘perfect storm’ and warn policymakers that policies need to be drastically reformed or European security of supply might go under. In his first post for Energy Post, our chief editor Karel Beckman wonders if things are really that bad – and has some tips to offer to our beleaguered energy executives how they might withstand the … [Read more...]