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Energy, Environment & Transport Pro Brief |
| Tue 15 October 2024 | View online
Estimated reading time: 4-5 minutes |
| Good morning , And welcome toTuesday 15 October’s daily Energy, Environment and Transport Pro Brief.
Today’s Brief mirrors the agenda of energy ministers, who are meeting in Luxembourg. We have pieces on Ukraine’s battered electricity system, power prices in the Balkans, more ambition on renewables and Russian LNG imports.
Cars is our other major focus - be it the feasibility of 2025 CO2 targets, fresh opposition to the 2035 combustion engine ban, or a new German interest in EV purchase schemes.
Here are our top stories for the day:
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| | Energy Council debates Ukraine’s winter shortages |
| Energy ministers are gathering in Luxembourg this morning, with Ukraine’s winter resilience high on the agenda.
The will have much to discuss.
Even without power shortages, cold snaps in eastern Europe can be deadly. In 2012, a drop to -30°C killed more than 100 Ukrainians.
This winter Ukrainians needs 18 GW of power generation to heat their homes but the country’s battered power plants can only generate around 9 GW to 10 GW, and a Russian missile strike could cut that number at any moment.
Brussels has long said it will support the besieged country.
“What we are doing now is collecting money for Ukraine to procure equipment which is needed,” says Artur Lorkowski, who heads the EU’s eastern European energy grouping known as The Energy Community, and is responsible for the €760 million Ukraine Energy Support Fund.
He says the fund already managed to contract 220 MW of decentralised and flexible gas power plants, and has helped reconstruct 2 GW of thermal coal power plant capacity.
“We can not do more than collecting money, developing projects, buying equipment and delivering it,” he told Euractiv, pointing to the constant threat of Russian missile strikes.
“Even if we can provide 2 GW of rebuilt capacity, it could be destroyed the day after it would be back in the system.”
The EU’s biggest way of helping – aside from providing missile defences to shield power plants from Russian attacks – has arguably been to connect Ukraine to the European power grid in early 2022.
Every hour, the Ukrainian grid can count on 1.7 GW from the EU to help keep the lights on – in the coming winter, these interconnectors will provide a major chunk of peak power demand.
An initial boost to 2.3 GW will likely be provided starting from November, Euractiv understands, by accepting a small degree of extra risk to European grid stability.
But interconnectors are where political promises meet hard reality, and long-term perspective looks less promising.
Nikolaus J. Kuryamer spoke with Lorkowski, who explained that while more interconnection with Europe could save Ukraine, political and economic considerations remain a serious barrier. |
| Power prices: time is the best healer? |
|  | Power market reform is on the agenda at today’s Energy Council. Greece, Bulgaria and Romania raised the alarm after experiencing electricity price spikes in recent months.
The countries wrote to Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson on 27 September, blaming in part large power flows to feed Ukraine’s struggling grid, and calling on Europe to take a mix of short and longer-term measures to fix the problem.
ENTSO-E data processed by Ember suggests that discussion may be less heated than originally foreseen. Since the letter was sent prices in the three countries have steadily fallen back in line with those of the rest of Europe. [DC/NK] |
| Coffee, but with extra wind turbines and solar panels, please |
| ‘Friends of Renewables’ energy ministers are having their usual pre-Energy Council breakfast in Luxembourg this morning.
Less usual is that they come with concrete demands: Their 12-country joint paper seen by Euractiv urges the incoming European Commission to continue “on the right path to climate neutrality” towards a “future-proof, efficient, competitive, resilient and predominantly RES based energy sector.”
Brussels should find “any remaining barriers for fast deployment of RES and grids,” the group says, adding that offshore plans and nature regulation should be a particular focus. This should be put into a “targeted legislative proposal for a Directive on the Acceleration of Permitting of RES and Energy Infrastructure,” the group says.
Other demands include: new flexibility measures; a fair framework for massive cross-border renewables projects; and a way to slowly wean the sector off government subsidies.
The statement was signed by Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Greece, Austria, Portugal, Ireland, Denmark, Cyprus, Malta, accounting for around 55% of the EU’s population.
In the ongoing ‘nuclear versus renewables’ struggle, the group strikes a conciliatory tone.
“Most of the demands could be supported by the pro-nuclear camp, so this offers little dynamite and increases the chances of implementation,” Philipp Jäger, a policy fellow at Berlin’s Hertie school told Euractiv. [NK] |
| Ten-state alliance wants to know: Who is importing Russian LNG? |
| With Russia once again the second-largest supplier of European ga, an alliance featuring France, the Baltics, Czechia and others is pushing for “transparency” on where Russian LNG is moving in Europe, a joint paper seen by Euractiv shows.
They are pushing for the Commission to track the “identity of gas suppliers who import LNG originating in Russia or exported from Russia” as well as “volumes of LNG originating in Russia or exported from Russia imported by each natural gas supplier.”
With Spain, Belgium and Germany – all known for their imports of at least some Russian LNG – absent from the group, the alliance is pushing for naming and shaming, “encouraging the Commission to ensure this transparency by publishing the information collected.” [NK] |
| | EU carmakers can reach 2025 emission goals, says think tank |
| The gap for carmakers to meet the EU's 2025 emissions targets is “smaller than it seems”, according to a study released today by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), contradicting carmakers who say they expect fines of up to €17 billion under current CO2 rules.
Under the EU’s CO2 standards for cars and vans, carmakers must reduce the average CO2 emissions of their cars by 15% compared to 2021 levels, and adjusted to reflect the average weight of newly sold cars.
While carmakers fear “multi-billion-euro fines” from 2025 due to the lower-than-expected sales of electric cars, the ICCT study argues that the needed market share increase for electric cars is achievable.
On average, carmakers will still need to reduce the average emissions of their newly sold cars by 12% compared to 2023 average emissions, the study found.
However, carmakers can 'pool' their counted emissions by working with competitors, meaning they only need to meet the targets if they are calculated together.
Thus, the necessary market share increase for electric cars between 2023 and 2025 “is at most about 1-1.5 times as high as the (...) growth observed from 2019-2021,” the ICCT notes.
Jonathan Packroff spoke to ICCT’s managing director Peter Mock told Jonathan Packroff that the 2025 target “remain achievable” and argued that the challenge for manufacturers “is less demanding than it was in 2021.” |
| New French right-wing surge against fossil fuel cars ban by 2035 |
| Europe’s 2035 de-facto ban on new fossil fuel cars is “destroying our car industry,” French EPP MEPs wrote in a press release yesterday, following the opening Paris’ biennial automotive show.
This goal is “a gift to outside powers, especially China”, they added, in a reference to the country's supply of cheap electric vehicles to Europe in recent years.
Anne-Sophie Frigout, leading Rassemblement national (PfE) MEP on the topic, subsequently called on X for a “wake-up call” against the “EU-initiated destruction of our industry”.
In parallel French right-wing group (EPP) MPs announced in L’Opinion that they will be tabling amendments against the government's proposal to raise the level of tax on combustion engine vehicles.
The government’s proposal is part of a wider push to restore the French budget by 2025. [PM] |
| Germany headed towards bipartisan consensus on EV sales boost |
| The centre-left SPD has made an EV sales boost a core part of its six-page strategic guidance document for the upcoming 2025 election, including new purchase incentives and mandatory EV quotas at leasing providers.
Meanwhile, centre-right CDU MEPs are banging the drum for a copy of France’s social leasing scheme, but targeting incomes below €45,000 and above the state support threshold, instead of the French approach, which limits support to those with incomes below €15,000.
They say this will boost the acceptance of switching to EVs and circumvent a backlash against the bloc’s new diesel and gas CO2 price from 2027.
Across the EU, monthly EV registrations were down to below 150,000 in August (a third less than the year before). In Germany, EV registrations were down 12.5% for the first half of the year. [NK] |
| | Reforms planned to protect Germany against floods |
| Germany’s Environment Minister Steffi Lemke proposed legal reform to protect the country against extreme flooding, in an interview with public radio station “Deutschlandfunk” yesterday.
After deadly floods in the Southern part of the country and Austria this summer, and with parts of the country still recovering from 2021’s flood catastrophe with 184 deaths in Germany, she stated that the country is now experiencing “what climate scientists have been predicting for years.“
This “should be a warning to us,” she added.
Lemke proposes reforming several federal laws to protect residential areas against foods. This would include restrictions on settlement density and mandatory construction of flood protection in high-risk areas. [JS] |
| NGOs denounce Draghi’s ‘alarming shortcomings’ on chemicals |
| Yesterday 18 environmental NGOs, including ClientEarth, EEB, ChemSec and HEAL wrote to the Council and the Commission, to highlight what they see as “alarming gaps” and inaccurate and unsubstantiated statements on chemicals, in Mario Draghi’s flagship report on European competitiveness. Anaïs Berthier, ClientEarth’s Head of Brussels said that the report “suggests to “simplify” the ‘EU acquis’ and stresses the need for permit acceleration in a way that would undermine environmental law.”
Draghi is not the only person environmental NGOs will be concerned about. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her re-election pitch to MEPs in July said that she will “simplify” REACH - the EU’s main chemical regulation law. [NC] |
| State of Europe’s water revealed – and it’s not looking good |
| Today the European Environment Agency (EEA) published a new report on the health of Europe’s water bodies.
The EEA stresses the significant pressure these rivers, lakes and other bodies are under. Agriculture is identified the most significant source of pressure, with impacts “resulting from water use and pollution from the intensive use of nutrients and pesticides.”
The report says that that the EU is not meeting its targets on improvement of the status of waters under the Water Framework Directive.
Finally, the report asks for better water management, stressing that the current European practices are poorly adapted to climate change events, making it to urgently improve water resilience. [BM] |
| Gas bills in Germany could rise by up to 56% |
| Just as the winter starts to kick in, German consumers may be facing the prospect of higher gas bills.
As reported by Funke Mediengruppe, German price comparison portal Verivox identified an average 25% rise in gas bills, after analyzing the prices of around 700 gas network suppliers. The highest increase was 56%.
Counterintuitively, the Federal Network Agency cited a decrease in gas demand as the main reason for the repricing. Reduced demand means fixed network maintenance costs must be born by fewer customers. [JS] |
| | French senators to debate their energy, climate programming law |
| The French Senate will today debate the country’s energy and climate programming law, which translates its EU-level commitments into national law.
The right-wing dominated upper house has produced its own proposals, which are less ambitious than the government's targets on wind and solar, but more ambitious on nuclear power.
Senators are proposing 14 to 20 new large reactors by 2050 – the current French government plans just six. Political instability in France blocked any progress on the programming law for months.
Consequently, in July the French government sidestepped parliamentary debate, and delivered its ‘National Energy and Climate Plan’ directly to the European Commission, without any supporting programming law.
The government is now hoping to pass the law via a process which would also sidestep parliamentary debate. [PM] |
| Academics weigh in on energy transition |
| Brussels-based think tank CERRE will unveil three new studies concerning the energy transition today, covering everything from project permitting to renewable gases to system modelling. The studies can collectively be considered as giving a ‘bird’s eye view’ of the energy transition in Europe, and consider how the different aspects of the transition will come together.
As you would expect from such a perspective, CERRE emphasis the importance of coordination, and push for different energy systems to be closely integrated – for example renewable power generation and gas production.
CERRE also calls on decision-makers not to neglect the simple things – like adequate staffing of permitting authorities. [DC] |
| | French budget: intra-government battle on energy taxation |
| French Ecology and Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher opposes a proposed increase in the excise duty on electricity to circa twice time the current €21/MWh. The hike was floated in the government’s 10 October budget proposition.
However Budget Minister Laurent Saint-Martin is defending the measure which, he argues, will not increase French people's electricity bills, as electricity prices are falling.
As reported in local media, Pannier-Runacher instead proposes a levy on gas, which is less taxed and more polluting than electricity.
But Saint-Martin is “not in favour.” Government spokesperson Maud Bregeon said on Sunday that “there will be no increase taxes on gas,” potentially calling into question the government initial proposal to increase VAT on gas boilers to the standard rate of 20%, compared with the current 5.5%. [PM] |
| | | | | | | Today’s brief was brought to you by Euractiv’s Energy, Environment & Transport team |
| | | | | Today’s briefing was prepared by the Energy, Environment and Transport team: Donagh Cagney, Nathan Canas, Paul Messad, Nikolaus J.Kurmayer and Bárbara Machado, but not with the keen eyes of any proofreaders. Share your feedback or information with us at digital@euractiv.com. |
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