EU makes progress on Renewables Directive

European Parliament negotiators reached an agreement with the Council’s Presidency on Tuesday on a proposed renewable energy directive, which would also include biofuel targets. The proposed directive establishes mandatory national targets to be achieved by the Member States, so as to enable 20% of the EU’s total energy consumption by 2020 to come from renewable sources.

This latest development will be of interest to energy companies in Europe keen to invest in the renewable energy sector.

Key aspects of agreements

20% target

MEPs and the Council Presidency agreed that the Commission’s review of the implementation of the directive, which is to take place by 2014, would not affect the EU’s overall 20% target but will serve to improve, if necessary, the efficiency of cooperation mechanisms between the different Member States.

Cooperation mechanisms

The political agreement fully incorporated the Industry Committee’s proposals for cooperation mechanisms to allow Member States to:

• run joint projects with one or more Member States on green electricity production, heating or cooling;
• transfer renewable energy “statistically” between each other; and
• join or partly coordinate their national renewable energy support schemes.

The agreement also adds the possibility of counting ‘green’ electricity consumed in a Member State but produced by newly constructed joint projects with third countries as part of a Member State’s renewable energy target.

10% target for the transport sector

Agreement was also reached on a target requiring 10% of fuels in the transport sector to come from renewable sources by 2020:

• “second-generation” biofuels produced from waste, residues, or non-food cellulosic and ligno-cellulosic biomass will be double credited towards the 10% target;
• renewable electricity for trains will be counted only once;
• renewable electricity consumed by electric cars will be considered 2.5 times its input;
• to be counted as a renewable source, biofuels must save at least 35% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions compared to fossil fuels; and
• the Commission intends to develop a methodology to measure the GHG emissions caused by indirect land use changes.

Next Steps

Before the informal compromise may become effective, it must now receive formal endorsement by the full Council and be tabled to a first-reading plenary vote at the European Parliament’s December II session in Strasbourg.

Leaders of EU Member States are also due to convene for the opening of an EU summit in Poland this Thursday, at which they will have an opportunity to finalise and approve a plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

Further information

To read our previous article on the EU Commission’s original climate change package, please click here.