18 May 2022

EURACTIV: EU tables €300bn plan to ditch Russian fossil fuels, speed up green transition

The European Commission submitted a €300 billion plan to eliminate Russian energy imports by 2027, although it admitted this would require short-term investments in new fossil fuel infrastructure to replace imports of Russian oil and gas.

Combined with green legislation already on the table, the new plan, dubbed REPowerEU, will help Europe save €100 billion each year on gas, oil and coal imports, the EU executive said.

“Putin’s war is, as we all see, heavily disrupting the global energy market,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, adding that it has shown Europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels and the vulnerability that comes with it.

“We must now reduce as soon as possible our dependency on Russian fossil fuels. I’m deeply convinced we can,” she continued.

The plan has three major elements: energy savings, boosting renewables, and diversifying European supplies of oil and gas.

It includes new proposals to raise the EU’s renewable energy target to 45% by 2030, up from the 40% target tabled last year, and increase the energy efficiency target from the 9% goal put forward in July 2021 to 13%.

It also proposes making solar panels mandatory for public and new residential buildings by 2025 and 2029, respectively.

“It is more urgent than ever that Europe become master of its own destiny, increase its resilience and sovereignty and continue to lead the world in facing the climate crisis,” said EU climate chief Frans Timmermans.

Under the plan, Russian gas usage will be reduced by two thirds by the end of 2022. This will be followed by a more gradual, linear reduction of reliance due to the time it takes to build up renewable energy capacities, a senior European Commission official said.

“If you would take that line, just for the sake of argument, you would reach independency, [in] about 2026 or 2027,” the official added.

Renewables at the heart of REPowerEU

Rapid and massive deployment of renewable energy, particularly solar, is at the core of the REPowerEU plan, according to the European Commission proposal.

To accelerate deployment, the EU executive wants to make permitting procedures simpler, with new wind and solar projects being declared a matter of “overriding public interest”, and ‘go-to’ areas introduced at the national level in zones with low environmental risk.

But there will also be costs associated with this, the EU executive adds, saying the REPowerEU plan would entail an additional investment of €210bn from the EU budget and carbon market revenues between now and 2027. By the end of the decade, the bill is expected to rise to €300bn in total.

Moreover, the fast decoupling from Russian energy could “lead to a period of higher and more volatile energy prices, due to the rising cost of fossil fuels,” the European Commission warns.

To tackle this, it insists on measures that would protect the most vulnerable households, including the possibility for EU countries to cap gas prices for consumers, “including households and industry”, and taxing windfall profits made by electricity companies because of the current high gas prices.

EURACTIV

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