EU On Target for Renewable Goal

MN: What are the major impediments to scaling up renewable energy production in the EU?
OS: All energy markets are policy driven, and the EU has focused its energy policy during the last 50 years on fossil and nuclear energy development. Both with major subsidies and favourable legislative and administrative frameworks. EU leaders now realise that this policy has become unsustainable due to climate change and increasing import dependency. Alone today’s oil price raises enormous concerns all around the world. The only energy sources that can help tackle these challenges are renewables. Clean energy sources are locally available. They have predictable prices. They create jobs in one of the fastest growing and most technologically advanced industry sectors. As such, they are the future.
The impediments to overcome are the creation of a favourable policy framework for renewables, the removal of subsidies to coal and nuclear, the removal of administrative barriers, putting a price on avoided external cost due to renewables energy production and the creation of long-term investor security. We are on our way in this direction.

MN: What energy production regulations are needed for individual EU member nations to contribute to meeting the 20 percent of energy from renewables by 2020 goal?
OS: Each country will have a different individual target based on its starting points and short-term efficiently realisable potentials. Some countries are already today at renewables shares of more than 30 percent, but still they will have to increase their share significantly in order to contribute to meeting the overall target.

MN: What incentives need to be put in place for providers and consumers of energy to participate? OS: In order to make this happen we need strong and coherent framework legislation on the European level as soon as possible and fine tuning of this framework within the Member States legislation according to individual circumstances.
This EU legislation must contain individual binding targets for each Member so that they can be fined heavily if they do not comply with the target. It needs to remove administrative barriers for renewables development, including the creation of rules that allow for speedy and easy permits in all sectors (eg. electricity, heating & cooling and biofuels). Priority grid access and fair transmission (rates) for renewables electricity will be part of the package as well as proposals for strategic grid planning to favour renewables.
Also, stable, long-term guarantees for national financial frameworks must be implemented. Since the electricity market in Europe is still heavily distorted and dominated by a few oligopolistic companies it is far too early to discuss a European-wide finance mechanism, such as guaranteed prices per kwh of renewables electricity as in a feed-in (tariff) system or the creation of a EU wide certificate market.
Still, most countries will decide to go for the mechanism which has proven to be the most cost-efficient and successful in terms of renewables development: the feed-in system. Enormous efforts will also have to be made in the heating sector, which so far has not been represented by any legislation on the EU level. And in addition we will have to introduce strong measures on increasing our energy efficiency.

MN: Which EU member nations are in the best position to meet the 20 percent goal, and why?
OS: Each Member State will receive an individual target which reflects their starting point. Each target will be ambitious. I imagine that those countries which have already started to develop renewables on a large scale during the past years, such as Germany, Denmark or Spain to name a few, will be able to move forward more rapidly than other countries, such as the UK, which have not acted according to their lip-service in the past.

MN: The U.K. has been reported as interested in creating a trading scheme so that member nations who can't comply might be able to purchase the needed renewable energy. Does EREC support selling renewable power across borders to meet the targets?
OS: The U.K. government seems to try to find solutions in order to get around and away from their commitments instead of concentrating on how to reach the goals. The trading mechanism they refer to is not planned to sell renewables power across borders, but to buy and sell virtual certificates.
Unfortunately, the U.K. will have to realise one day that the target is not virtual, but very real and that the setting of individual goals such as a trading mechanism is also not necessary. Nevertheless, EREC would like to see much more cross border trading of physical renewables power, but this is still prevented due to a lack of interconnection of grid lines amongst the borders.

MN: Are the existing renewable energy technologies sufficient to meet the 20 percent goal, or is there an expectation that advances (such as the cellulosic ethanol or increased energy efficiency of photovoltaics) will occur?
OS: Yes, clearly they are. All scientific analyses show that the goal is realistic and is based on existing technologies only. Still, the industry will contribute with its knowledge and technological leadership in most sectors to achieve better results by introducing more advanced and efficient technologies in all areas.
Photovoltaics will become more efficient and much cheaper; biofuels will be more diversified and more effective. New technologies such as ocean power will develop. Only with a broad mix of renewables we will meet the goal.

MN: What roles can biofuels – which have the potential to compete with agricultural production – play, and what regulations are needed to ensure that the feed stock is produced sustainably?
OS: Amongst the 20% renewable energy goal there is a further target of having 10% of transport fuels coming from biofuels by 2020. This goal has been set based on prior scientific analysis. Results have shown that neither a scarcity of land nor a great competition with food production is to be expected. The legislation will also contain strong sustainability criteria for the life-cycle of biofuels and by that guarantee a sustainable production.

MN: In the U.S. the power grid is not well suited to managing and distributing energy from intermittent renewable resources. Is the grid in Europe ready today to handle distributed resources such as wind and solar?
OS: This argument was often used here in Europe in the past by grid operators that were both producers and distributors and who wanted to prevent market entrants from taking away the market share. And this is exactly what happened, Yet we still did not face any major problems. Reality has proven that the grid is much stronger than claimed. With improvements, it can handle a great load of variable sources. There are additional challenges with renewables, but these can be overcome by engineering solutions.
The U.S. sent the first man to the moon, I believe your nation will also be able to handle some minor challenges in grid integration too!