By taking over the German lignite assets of Vattenfall, Czech utility EPH shows it believes in the future of lignite in Germany. This raises questions for the German government about its climate policies - and for the Swedish government which has to decide on the deal, writes Julian Schwartzkopff, researcher at energy and climate think tank E3G. … [Read more...]
Elena Bou, KIC InnoEnergy: “If we want our energy companies to succeed, we need one European market”
We are at the beginning of a new era of innovation in the European energy sector. Energy companies will be opening up to new collaborations, investing in startups, creating new technologies and developing new business models that will be much more service and customer oriented. That’s the conviction of Elena Bou, Innovation Director at KIC InnoEnergy, an EU-wide company investing in renewable energy technology. What worries Bou is the … [Read more...]
MIT: “Paris” sets world on course for 3C temperature rise by end century
Implementation of the Paris Agreement will lead to a temperature rise between 2.7 and 3.6C, far exceeding the 2C goal. That’s the main conclusion from new results of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Under this program, a team of scientists has investigated the likely effects of commitments made under the Paris Climate Agreement on global temperatures. … [Read more...]
Why EU renewable energy figures are misleading: Europe requires 150% renewable energy to become fossil-free
The EU is confident it will reach its target of 20% renewable energy by 2020. But according to Martien Visser, professor at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen (The Netherlands), this 20% is in reality more like 14%. This is because a large part of our energy consumption is simply ignored in the calculations for renewable energy. “Even with 100% renewables, we would still need a lot of fossil fuels”, Visser notes. … [Read more...]
Post-Paris: if the EU can’t be climate leader at home, it could lead by helping others
Although the Paris Agreement was a diplomatic success for the European Union, the EU’s own climate policy is looking increasingly unambitious, write Susanne Dröge and Oliver Geden of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. According to the authors this is the result of internal differences which are unlikely to be resolved soon. They suggest that if the EU wants to maintain its international leadership in the … [Read more...]
How to scale up renewables in 10 steps: a quick guide for policymakers
After the signing of the Paris Agreement, governments of both developed and developing countries must design and implement policy instruments to drastically scale up the use of renewables in the energy sector, write Jan Frederik Braun and Nicole de Paula. The authors provide a quick guide to effective policymaking for renewable energy and explain why they are optimistic about the future. … [Read more...]
If Europe wants integrated markets, it should take the leap to regional grids
Europe is progressing towards an integrated, interconnected pan-European electricity market. However, writes Philip Baker of the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), the governance and regulatory arrangements that the EU has established to support this process are inadequate to the task. They are more focused on preserving the sovereignty of national TSO and regulators than addressing the wider interests of the market. According to Baker, the EU … [Read more...]
Europe needs “coalition of the willing” to rescue its global leadership in the fight against climate change
The EU, plagued by internal differences, is on the verge of losing its long-standing leadership in climate change policy, write Bill Hare and Andrzej Ancygier of climate science and policy institute Climate Analytics. If the European Commission is unable to forge a consensus on an ambitious climate policy, argue Hare and Ancygier, a smaller “coalition of the willing” should take up the climate banner. But there should be no free ride for laggards … [Read more...]
Can battery electrics disrupt the internal combustion engine? Part 2: “kind-of”
Battery electric cars do not meet the basic criteria for disruptive innovation, Schalk Cloete argued in part 1 of this two-part series. Small electric vehicles (SEVs), on the other hand, do have disruptive potential, he writes. Our urbanizing world with its rapidly expanding middle class and increasing resource constraints will reinforce this trend. Thus, he concludes, internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles may lose substantial market share to … [Read more...]
EU expects large nuclear new-build programme despite escalating costs
The European Commission estimates that nearly three quarters of a trillion Euros will need to be spent on nuclear power over the next decades to enable it to maintain a market share of about one-fifth of the EU electricity mix in 2050. At the same time it notes that the cost of building new nuclear plants has risen 50% in the last decade. Critics say the Commission is too optimistic and has not analysed what the advent of renewables and changing … [Read more...]
Why the UK Green Deal failed and why it needs a replacement
The National Audit Office in the UK has concluded that the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s (DECC) ÂŁ240 million Green Deal has achieved virtually nothing. David Thorpe, independent consultant and author of several books on energy efficiency in buildings, explains what went wrong. He compares the British approach with the successful German scheme and argues that a new scheme is urgently needed. … [Read more...]
Can battery electrics disrupt the internal combustion engine? Part 1: “No”
Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) will do well to take more than 10% of global light duty vehicle market share by mid-century, writes research scientist Schalk Cloete. This is because BEVs with the large battery pack needed for broad consumer acceptance will remain more expensive than internal combustion engine (ICE) cars. According to Cloete, this price premium is unlikely to be accepted by the mass market even under optimistic future BEV … [Read more...]
Understanding the UK’s capacity market
According to a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) the UK’s government capacity market is not working. With a consultation from the UK Department of Energy and Climage Change (DECC) just finished, Byron Orme, research fellow in energy, transport and climate policy at IPRR explains what the capacity market was supposed to achieve, where it has gone wrong and how it could be fixed. Courtesy of Carbon Brief. … [Read more...]
Injecting energy into the agenda of trade negotiators
Barriers to trade and investment in energy goods and services, long neglected, are starting to  be addressed by trade negotiators in the World Trade Organisation and outside of it. The process of integrating the energy dimension to trade policy is however still in its infancy. An upcoming report from the World Energy Council aims to offer trade officials a policy agenda. Iana Dreyer, editor of Borderlex.eu, a newsletter specialised in EU trade … [Read more...]
Why the EU’s electricity market redesign misses the mark
To address the crisis in the EU power sector, the European Commission has embarked on a fundamental reform process – the Market Design Initiative. However, according to Michael Hogan, Senior Advisor at the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP), the problem with the EU power sector today is not so much market design as a glut of old, inflexible baseload generation. … [Read more...]
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