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Coping with the Crisis: Increasing Resilience in Small Businesses in Europe through Energy Efficiency
Proposed Energy Saving Strategies Today’s global energy crisis has driven up the cost of fuels and electricity, creating shortages and hurting consumers, businesses and entire economies. Small to medium enterprises (SMEs) are some of the most exposed economic players, lacking the margins, economies of scale, and support staff that allow larger companies to mitigate the impact of the crisis. At the same time, SMEs are the backbone of economies around the world, making their survival essential.To help smaller businesses overcome these perilous challenges and to sustain European economies, the European Commission and the International Energy Agency have teamed…
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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
…of the solution, but even very rapid deployment will take time to make a major dent in demand for imported gas. The faster EU policy makers seek to move away from Russian gas supplies, the greater the potential implications in terms of economic costs and/or near-term emissions. Circumstances also vary widely across the EU, depending on geography and supply arrangements.Reducing reliance on Russian gas will not be simple, requiring a concerted and sustained policy effort across multiple sectors, alongside strong international dialogue on energy markets and security. There are multiple links between Europe’s policy choices and...
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GlobalABC Regional Roadmap for Buildings and Construction in Africa 2020-2050
…including urban planning, new buildings, existing buildings, building operations, appliances and systems, materials, resilience, and clean energy. For each of these themes, priority actions related to policy and technology are identified as well as other enabling activities including capacity building and finance. This Roadmap was developed in collaboration with the GlobalABC and UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Several hundred building sector actors from across the region participated through consultations in webinars, questionnaires and workshops. Executive summary With the Paris Agreement countries have agreed to a common goal of maintaining the global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees, and preferably no…
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Is the European Union on track to meet its REPowerEU goals?
…energy does increase in all three of these sectors by 2027 in our main-case forecast, in none of them are levels consistent with the REPowerEU plan. While the share of renewables in electricity expands to almost 55% by 2027 in our main case, this is well below the 69% share the European Commission estimates is needed to support the REPowerEU plan. To enable further increases, governments across the European Union will need to minimise policy uncertainty, simplify permitting procedures and accelerate transmission and distribution network upgrades. Ramping up renewables-based power generation is also essential to expand renewable energy…
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European Union 2020
…the progress made by the EU, such as the creation of an internal energy market and enhancement of energy security and climate policies. The IEA provides a range of recommendations for the successful implementation of the European Green Deal in the coming years. The report also outlines opportunities for boosting shortand long-term actions for a resilient, sustainable and just recovery of the European economy. Executive summary Over the past five years, the European Union (EU) has made significant progress in completing the internal market for electricity and gas, promoting energy efficiency action, renewable energy deployment, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions…
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IEA Support to Accelerating Renewable Energy Permitting (ARPE)
…for renewable energy in the overall energy mix to 42.5% (with the ambition of 45%) – up from 40% in the 2021 proposal. Achieving this will require more than 1 200 gigawatts (GW) of installed cumulative renewable power capacity by 2030, almost double that of 2023.The key barrier to rapid renewables deployment in many EU Member states is lengthy and complex administrative procedures related to project permitting. In May 2022, the European Commission released recommendations on permitting, including on identification of renewable acceleration areas (RAAs) where shortened and simplified permitting can be applied.In November 2023, the revised Renewable Energy Directive…
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Is renewable energy capacity in the European Union making windfall profits from high wholesale prices?
…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, wholesale market exposure is under 40% for wind, solar PV and bioenergy technologies. Hydropower plants, which account for one-quarter of…
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Clean Energy Transitions in the Greater Horn of Africa
…committed to helping African countries use energy sector transformation to cope with and recover from crises such as the Covid‑19 pandemic and the Russian Federation’s (“Russia” hereafter) invasion of Ukraine, which have destabilised economies and energy systems. This can be done by improving data, informing decision making and guiding policy implementation, in collaboration with local, regional and international institutions. This report focuses on the eight countries in the greater Horn of Africa region, here defined as Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda. It recommends pathways to accelerate clean energy transitions and analyses energy trends across the region…
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Clean Energy Transitions Programme 2023
…and developing economies. The first of these focuses on supporting emerging and developing countries to establish clean energy transition goals, in line with the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations. The second pillar centres on facilitating coordination among multilateral organisations such as the Group of 20 (G20) and UN-affiliated collaborations. The final pillar showcases the IEA’s work at a global level to enable and accelerate clean energy transitions.The CETP Annual Report 2023 provides an overview of the programme’s achievements over the past year. The remarkable impact…
