On Thursday 22 February, the European Commission’s Vice President for the Energy Union, Maroš Šefčovič, called for the creation of a solid industrial base in strategic sectors of the EU such as electric batteries, renewable energy technologies and eco-construction as a means of responding to the clean energy transition and strengthening the EU's competitiveness.
At the opening of the Industrial Forum on Clean Energy on the first day of the European Industry Days event in Brussels, Šefčovič, insisted that, “This is critical to our competitiveness but also to maintaining Europe's capacity to innovate and remain at the cutting edge. It is the only way to bridge the deployment gap (so-called ‘valley of death’) for our innovation. Yes, we should massively and strategically invest massively into disruptive innovation to achieve our climate goals”.
He added that, “We should also have the manufacturing base in place to convert this into competitive advantage. Otherwise we become the ‘incubator’ of the rest of the world, and our innovators end up responding to the Siren calls of our global competitors, despite our initial investment”.
To this end, Mr Šefčovič is promoting solid public-private partnerships, in addition to partnerships within the value chain and common action plan in strategic areas for the Energy Union: batteries, renewable energies and construction (see EUROPE 11959).
The Commissioner said that batteries were, “a key to our mobility and energy systems. Developing a competitive manufacturing value chain for batteries, in Europe, is not just a precondition to prevent major technological dependence upon our global competitors. It also has huge jobs, growth and investment potential – up to 4 to 5 million jobs could be created! A surge in battery demand is expected over the next 5 years. This represents a new market of around €250 billion a year”.
Mr Šefčovič also welcomed the initiative by the European renewables energies industry, “This in itself is a first”, he said, adding that, “Europe’s renewables industry-led initiative covers all renewable energy technologies and the full sectoral supply chain, from material developers, to technology providers, passing through project developers”
The Commissioner also highlighted the fact that construction works are gathering momentum in the European construction sector where innovation can respond to the potential of massive energy savings in a sector responsible for 40% of final energy demand in the EU. The EIB has just set up the Smart Finance for Smart Building. This will provide a formidable financial lever (up to €10 billion in financing and which could help take 3 million families out of energy poverty). The Commissioner also said, “But we need to go further to reduce the significant resource and environmental footprints all along the buildings' life cycle”.
Šefčovič called on European industry to respond to the efforts undertaken by the cities in Europe in favour of the energy transition, “by deploying state of the art innovative solutions: decentralised energy production, smart buildings, charging infrastructure for electric and other vehicles, clean car sharing services etc”. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)