European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs has called on EU Member States to “do more, be more ambitious and be even bolder” in order to deal with climate change, high energy prices and energy security.
Launching the European Commission’s second Strategic Energy Review, Piebalgs and Commission President José Manuel Barroso warned that more action is needed to avert the risk of an energy crisis in the EU, including major investments in infrastructure and greater diversification of energy supplies.
The wide-ranging Strategic Energy Review seeks to reduce the EU’s dependence on energy imports, and puts the adoption and implementation of the Commission’s climate change package as a top priority. Its proposals will shape Europe’s energy policy for years to come and will put internal relations as well as Europe’s relationship with Russia under the spotlight.
The Review highlights the need to create an energy policy to 2050, increase energy efficiency measures and build solidarity within the EU. It includes a five-point plan on energy security and proposes a new policy on energy networks.
“The EU has come together as never before to deal with climate change, high energy prices and energy security,” said Piebalgs. “But we have to do more, be more ambitious, and be even bolder to avoid the risk of energy disruption in the future. This means investment. Investing in energy, including energy efficiency, means giving our economy the push it needs at this uncertain time.”
The first Strategic Energy Review was published in 2007 and provided the framework for the Commission’s climate and energy package, also known as the ‘20-20-20’ policy. This policy is the right path, says the Commission, but Europe needs to maintain its forward-looking agenda to ensure future stability.
The latest Review supports the development of new natural gas pipelines, offshore wind power, low carbon technologies and the exploitation of indigenous energy resources. It also makes grid interconnection a priority, and could see the Trans-European Energy Networks programme replaced with a new, EU Energy Security and Infrastructure instrument.
In a five-point EU Energy Security and Solidarity Action Plan, the Commission says that a number of infrastructure developments should be recognised as energy security priorities. These include the development of a Baltic Interconnection plan and of a Southern Gas Corridor to diversify gas supplies away from Russia.
An LNG Action Plan should be implemented for Member States that are dependent on a single gas supplier, while completion of the Mediterranean energy ring would help to increase supply security and improve access to the “vast solar and wind energy potential” of the southern Mediterranean.
Creation of a Southern Gas Corridor would involve construction of a new pipeline from the Caspian to the EU, bypassing Russia allowing access to the reserves of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. It would also involve pushing forward projects such as the Nabucco pipeline.
The EU currently relies on Russia for 42 per cent of its imported natural gas. Even if the region’s renewable energy policy goals are reached, imports of energy supplies will still rise, says the Commission.
The Strategic Energy Review also endorses making more use of indigenous energy supplies, in particular offshore wind power. The Commission believes that up to 150 GW of interconnected offshore wind capacity could be developed in the North Sea by 2030.
The offshore wind sector faces a number of challenges, however, not least rising costs. The European Commission notes in the Review that the sector “competes on the one hand with onshore wind for the existing turbine production capacity and on the other with the oil and gas exploration industry for the existing offshore equipment and expertise”.
British utility Centrica recently said that it was reviewing the economic viability of planned wind farms due to soaring costs and the difficult financial environment.
Other technologies that the Commission plans to support include carbon capture and storage (CCS). It says that its next step in the Strategic Energy Technology Plan will be a communication on financing low carbon technologies, and notes that greater incentives are required if its goal of 12 CCS demonstration plants by 2015 is to be reached.
“[The Commission] will propose ways to support large scale demonstrations at EU level, including up to 12 CCS demonstration plants,” says the Commission in a memo. “Use of coal in the longer run is only compatible with climate challenge if highly-efficient plants predominate and CCS is widely available. The Berlin Fossil Fuel Forum will look at which additional measures could be taken at Community and national level … to promote cost-effective and environmentally-compatible access to indigenous EU fossil fuels.”
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