- After a turbulent year marked by dwindling gas supplies and soaring energy bills in 2022, Europe is now looking beyond emergency measures.
- It wants to explore long-term fixes to the energy crisis and lay the groundwork for the green transition.
- Last year saw EU capitals scramble to plaster over the cracks of the energy crisis, using government cheque books to protect the most vulnerable.
Now the EU is looking to fill in those cracks with long-lasting measures that should pave the way to a renewable energy future and shield consumers from excessive bills. “We are in a special situation where we have to see how we can get from these kinds of crisis measures to more structural ones,” said Eero Ailio, an advisor at the European Commission’s energy department.
Finalizing Climate Legislation
Even before the energy crisis, the EU was working on a historic package of legislation to reduce emissions by 55% before the end of the decade, decrease energy demand and phase out fossil fuels. The end of 2022 saw most of the emission-related laws agreed and the decisions made show the EU is “still on track” to reach its climate targets, according to Andreas Graf, a senior associate at the think-tank Agora Energiewende. This year should see the finalization of laws to boost renewable energy and energy efficiency. There will also be a push to complete legislation on improving the energy performance of buildings and decarbonising gas.
Alongside reducing gas consumption, the EU will need to phase out coal to meet its emission reduction targets. However, in light of the ongoing volatility of energy prices and likelihood of further challenges posed by Russia, Europe should reassess how it phases out coal, said Radan Kanev, a Bulgarian lawmaker who sits in the European Parliament’s environment committee.“We should anticipate a decade of turmoil in the energy markets, which means gas is not a working solution for the levels of coal generation that we have here,” said Kanev.
Electricity Market Reform
The rise of renewable energy should be supported by a reform of the EU’s electricity market, which is expected to be tabled in the spring. An update of Europe’s electricity market was always going to be needed to allow for more renewables, Graf said at the event. “What was always clear was that we would need to relook at the market design in the long term because of our decision to transition to a market that would be more dominated by low cost generators – wind and solar especially,” he explained.
Opening up the electricity market is like opening Pandora’s box, said Wanda Buk from the Polish Electricity Association (PKEE). Speaking at the event, she warned against permanently applying the emergency measures introduced in 2022, like the revenue cap for cheap electricity production. Each EU country was left to decide how low to set the revenue cap, but there has been criticism of the law’s implementation in Poland, including a lawsuit by renewable energy company EDPR. If 2022 was the year of emergency measures to tackle the energy crisis, then 2023 will mark the start of addressing the root problem and ensuring a similar crisis never happens again. Whether that succeeds or not is yet to be seen.
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Source: Euractiv
