During the night of Wednesday 13 June to Thursday 14 June, negotiators from the Bulgarian presidency of the Council of the EU and those of the European Parliament headed by José Blanco Lopez (S&D, Spain) reached a political agreement in trialogue on the revised draft directive on renewable energies, proposed in November 2016 by the Commission.
Under that agreement, the new regulatory framework is based on the binding target of 32% of renewable energies in the EU’s primary energy mix by 2030, including a review clause by 2023 for upward revision of the EU level target.
A minimal share of at least 14% of fuel used must be from renewable sources for the transport sector.
First generation biofuels from subsistence crops are capped at 2020 levels (with an additional 1% authorised) and should not exceed 7% of final consumption of road and rail transport. The share of advanced biofuels and biogas should be at least 1% in 2025 and at least 3.5% in 2030.
Biofuels from subsistence crops such as palm oil will be gradually phased out by 2030 through a process of certification of biofuels with zero or low rates of emissions linked to the indirect change in land use, to be set in place.
For the heating/cooling sector, the agreement provides an indicative sub-target of 1.3% growth per year of renewable use in cooling and heating installations, calculated over a 5 year period as of 2021.
The new legislation will improve the design and stability of support schemes for renewables and will streamline and reduce administrative procedures.
It also provides for sustainability criteria for the use of solid bio-energies.
Another breakthrough is that the agreement provides a new right for communities, cooperatives and individuals to produce, consume, stock and sell their own renewable energy without excessive costs or administrative barriers.
“We have considerably improved the initial proposal and set in place a coherent strategy”, said Blanco Lopez, underlining the legislation will discourage production of biofuels from subsistence crops and stimulate advanced biofuels.
Lopez also hailed the strengthening of self-consumption as a right and the ban on charges and fees on self-consumed energy until 2026.
“The new directive will give security and certainty to investors and simplify administrative procedures for renewable energy products”, he stressed.
The Greens/EFA and their rapporteur at the environment committee, Bas Eickhout of the Netherlands, said “this is a modest success on the objectives but the key decisions for bringing legislation in line with the Paris agreement are deferred until 2023”.
Eickhout also commended suppression of administrative and legal obstacles for facilitating citizens’ self-production and self-consumption of clean energy and hailed the gradual phasing out of palm oil as a “real gain”.
Once the agreement is confirmed by the Council and Parliament, the revised directive will take effect 20 days after its publication in the EU Official Journal and member states will have 18 months in which to transpose it into their national laws.
Commission satisfied, reservation from stakeholders
The Commission welcomes an agreement that “will allow the EU to become the world number one in renewables. This will allow Europe to keep its leadership role in the fight against climate change, in the clean energy transition and in meeting the goals set by the Paris agreement”.
Environmental NGOs Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and WWF welcome rights given to citizens’ energy but consider the target of 32% inadequate for a future without fossil energies. They also criticise rules on bio-energy that will still allow more trees and crops to be burnt to produce energy.
The Transports & Environment association denounced postponement until 2030 of total phasing out of biofuels from palm oil, contrary to the Parliament’s demand to stop support for palm oil biodiesel by 2021.
The European Consumers’ Bureau (BEUC) welcomes provisions allowing households to sell electricity they produce from solar panels and to obtain at least the market price, doing away with taxes on solar energy as imposed in Spain.
Finally, the agricultural organisations (COPA-COGECA) welcome a stable long term framework for biofuel producers, but which does not give EU agri-fuels the possibility to develop because of the deferral of the ban on palm oil. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)