The European Parliament, through its ITRE Committee (the European Parliament Committee on Industry, Research, Telecoms & Energy) has backed a deal to support non-fossil flexibility and energy storage, ahead of trilogue negotiations on the Electricity Market Design (EMD).
Parliament’s position introduces a range of new provisions to support the deployment of flexible technologies, such as energy storage. Member States would now have the powers to set up non-fossil flexibility support schemes, which provide energy storage with a solid business case. Additionally, EU countries must now assess the flexibility needed in the electricity system to deploy further sources of renewable energy in line 2030 climate goals, and set a national objective for energy storage.
The Commission will introduce a Strategy for Energy Storage from 2025, to ensure a harmonised approach across the EU. EASE (European Association for the Storage of Energy) policy officer Thomas Lewis's commenting on new provisions for flexibility said: “The result of today’s vote is a positive step to better align Europe’s electricity market towards our climate and energy goals. The introduction of flexibility support schemes will give investors' confidence in energy storage technologies to provide the flexibility needed to integrate further renewable energy. EASE is pleased to see that this deal ensures in-depth assessments for flexibility at both the national and European level, and crucially introduces a Union Strategy on Demand Response and Energy Storage from 2025 with the possibility of EU-level targets.”
On rejecting fossil-fuel dependency, he commented: “Members of Parliament rightly rejected any attempts to allow for further subsidies to prop-up coal through capacity mechanisms. In the future, we hope to see stricter CO2 emissions limits implemented to ensure swift decarbonisation of back-up power and the uptake of energy storage.”
The next step will take this as the parliament’s position to trilogue negotiations with the EU Commission and Council. The EU Council has yet to adopt its position on the Energy Market Design. Once it does, trilogue negotiations can begin.
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