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Northwest European Hydrogen Monitor 2022
…Hydrogen Monitor. It aims to provide an annual update of the renewable and low-emission hydrogen market developments in Northwest Europe. It is the result of a collaboration among the countries involved in the Hydrogen Initiative of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM-H2I) workstream entitled, “Roundtable on the North-West European Region” and the hydrogen working group of the Pentalateral Forum.The countries analysed in this monitor are: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Market monitoring is accompanied by a continuous dialogue with key stakeholders to facilitate information exchange and data collection.
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Is the European Union on track to meet its REPowerEU goals?
…to align their domestic policies, accelerate biofuel deployment and reinforce conservation and efficiency programmes to contain or reduce energy demand and enlarge the share of renewables in final energy consumption. Meanwhile, renewable energy shares in heating and cooling expand 0.9 percentage points annually up to 2027 – one-third faster than during the last decade, but well below the 2.3‑percentage-point annual increases needed to match REPowerEU ambitions. To accelerate deployment, more aggressive policies will be needed to strengthen heat pump supply chains; increase labour availability for installations; integrate renewable energy sources in district heating networks; scale up biomethane…
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Is renewable energy capacity in the European Union making windfall profits from high wholesale prices?
…developers are allowed to receive higher revenues from the market, they can only partially answer the question on windfall profits because data are limited concerning non-policy factors, including long-term bilateral power purchase contracts, developers’ hedging strategies and exposure in the wholesale electricity market. To understand these non-policy factors, we examined the balance sheets of the European utilities with large operational renewable and fossil fuel capacities. Policy schemes In the European Union, policy schemes make more than half of utility- and commercial-scale renewable power capacity (including large-scale hydropower) eligible to receive wholesale energy prices. Excluding hydropower…
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Coping with the Crisis: Increasing Resilience in Small Businesses in Europe through Energy Efficiency
…With many small businesses already reeling from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the current high energy prices and supply uncertainty are creating further pressure on their survival. How the EU supports SMEs Since the start of the energy crisis, the European Commission has come forward with several initiatives that aim at supporting not only households but also small businesses. Already in October 2021, the Commission published a toolbox of measures that EU countries can use to help businesses, such as income support, energy vouchers, rebates on bills or financial support for energy efficiency and renewable energy measures. More recently…
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How to Avoid Gas Shortages in the European Union in 2023
…natural gas markets are not yet out of the danger created by Russia’s cuts to pipeline deliveries of gas. If gas exports from Russia drop to zero and China’s LNG imports rebound to 2021 levels, there is a risk of a shortfall gas supplies in 2023. Measures already taken by EU governments on energy efficiency, renewables and heat pumps should help reduce the size of this potential natural gas supply-demand gap in 2023. A recovery in nuclear and hydropower output from their decade-low levels in 2022 should also help narrow the gap. Despite all of this…
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A 10-Point Plan to Reduce the European Union’s Reliance on Russian Natural Gas
…reliance on Russian gas, while enhancing the near-term resilience of the EU gas network and minimising the hardships for vulnerable consumers.A suite of measures in our 10-Point Plan, spanning gas supplies, the electricity system and end-use sectors, could result in the EU’s annual call on Russian gas imports falling by more than 50 bcm within one year – a reduction of over one-third. These figures take into account the need for additional refilling of European gas storage facilities in 2022 after low Russian supplies helped drive these storage levels to unusually low levels. The 10-Point…
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Will new PV manufacturing policies in the United States, India and the European Union create global PV supply diversification?
Renewables 2022 This report forms a component of Chapter 4 of Renewables 2022 and addresses a key question in renewable energy markets. The high level of geographical concentration in the global PV supply chain has led the European Union, India and the United States to introduce policy incentives to support domestic PV production. This could result in an unprecedented expansion of PV manufacturing outside of China in the next five years. However, diversifying manufacturing will be possible only if production costs fall to ensure competitiveness with the lowest-cost producers (e.g. in China and ASEAN countries) in both the short and…