Brussels wants both a single European energy market and 20% renewables in the energy mix by 2020. The latter goal, however, Â risks disrupting the former. The Commission must resolve this tension in new state aid guidelines for energy for 2014-2020. Â The renewables sector warns that the conditions the Commission is currently considering threaten the renewable energy sector. (Photo: uSwitch) … [Read more...]
Exclusive: RWE sheds old business model, embraces transition
RWE, Germany’s largest power producer, has decided to radically depart from its traditional business model based on large-scale thermal power production. Henceforth, the company will “create value by leading the transition to the future energy world”.  This is shown by confidential strategy documents that were discussed at a recent meeting of RWE’s Supervisory Board in Warsaw which Energy Post has seen. Photo: RWE power plant in Hamm-Uentrop … [Read more...]
Europe is not alone on climate
Cynics claim that the EU has failed in its attempt to achieve a worldwide climate policy and is only hurting its own economy by insisting on highly ambitious CO2 emission reduction targets. But this is a far too simplistic view of how the world works, argues Liz Gallagher of E3G. According to Gallagher, Europe has achieved much more than most observers realise. Countries across the world are increasingly modelling their policies on the EU … [Read more...]
How to turn Bulgaria into Eastern Europe’s energy hub and gateway
Bulgaria has become notorious for the failure of many big energy projects in recent years. Yet there is more going on in the Bulgarian energy sector than meets the eye, writes independent energy consultant Valentin Stoyanov. According to Stoyanov, Bulgaria could even become one of Europe’s main energy hubs. The country has strong and diverse energy assets to start with, ranging from coal and nuclear power to hydropower and renewable energies. It … [Read more...]
Darwin, Dylan and the future of utilities
Australian journalist Giles Parkinson has published a must-read series of articles on his website Reneweconomy about how renewable energy is upsetting the business model of incumbent network operators and generators in Queensland, Australia. His insights provide crucial lessons for utilities elsewhere, most certainly in Europe.  As a recent report from Citi notes: “If we look at the situation facing European utilities, the future looks … [Read more...]
The Dutch Energiewende
With the National Energy Accord, signed on 6 September, the Netherlands has its own version of the Energiewende. Or has it? Energy Post editor Karel Beckman explains the ins and outs of the Accord and discusses its implications for the future of Dutch energy policy. His verdict: despite the hype that has surrounded the Accord, it does not come anywhere near an “energy transition” in the German style. … [Read more...]
Christoph Frei, World Energy Council: “Resilience will rise to top of agenda”
The chances that we will be able to meet our climate targets are becoming increasingly slim, notes Christoph Frei, Secretary-General of the World Energy Council (WEC) in an interview with Energy Post. The main reason for this is that CCS (carbon capture and storage), a crucial element in any emission reduction strategy, “is not happening”. This means, says Frei, that “if no radical policy shift takes place, concerns will shift from mitigation to … [Read more...]
World Energy in 2040: Our fossil-fueled future
What sort of fabulous new energy systems will the world possess in 2040? Which fuels will supply the bulk of our energy needs? And how will that change the global energy equation, international politics, and the planet’s health? If the experts at the U.S. Department of Energy are right, the startling “new” fuels of 2040 will be oil, coal, and natural gas -- and we will find ourselves on a baking, painfully uncomfortable planet. Famous energy … [Read more...]
Second generation biofuels? US Navy comes to the rescue
In a noteworthy article for Foreign Policy magazine, US Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus reveals how the US military is cutting its dependence on fossil fuels and making a great push for “advanced biofuels”. It is doing this for fear of falling behind in the “eco-arms race”. Will the US military's program provide the boost the second-generation biofuels so badly needs? Photo: Exercise of the Green Fleet of the US Navy … [Read more...]
Is the EU done picking clean energy winners?
How far is the EU preparing to move away from its current energy R&D strategy of picking technological winners? In a new policy paper earlier this year, the European Commission outlined its vision for a fresh approach to innovation that takes the energy system as its starting point and focuses on system outcomes, not individual technologies. This is the R&D dimension of the EU’s current battle for a 2030 climate and energy policy. Sonja … [Read more...]
State aid for nuclear? Are you kidding?
EU Competition Commissioner JoaquĂn 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...]
EIB cleans up its energy lending policy
The European Investment Bank (EIB) intends to place stricter CO2 emission standards on coal power plants that it finances, but not as strict as the standards president Obama recently proposed in the US. The EIB is also considering investing in shale gas projects, according to a draft of its new energy lending policy. NGOs accuse the EIB of a “missed opportunity to politically reject coal”. With the EBRD and World Bank also mulling new investment … [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...]