The European Parliament’s rapporteur for the revision of the Energy Efficiency Directive (2018/2002), Niels Fuglsang (S&D, Denmark), has proposed increasing the EU’s energy efficiency target to at least 43% for final energy consumption and 45.5% for primary energy consumption, according to his draft report sent to shadow rapporteurs on Friday 18 February.
This is an increase of about 7 percentage points compared to the targets that were set out in the European Commission’s original proposal (36% for final energy consumption and 39% for primary energy consumption compared to the anticipated consumption for 2030 in a 2007 baseline scenario – see EUROPE 12762/8).
This also corresponds to a reduction in energy consumption in the EU of 19% by 2030 compared to the level of effort in the 2020 baseline scenario, and compared to 9% in the European Commission’s proposal.
The rapporteur also wants an increase of 2% for the obligation for Member States to make annual final energy savings between 2024 and 2030 (compared to 1.5% as included in the Commission’s proposal).
The same applies to the annual reduction target for public sector energy consumption (where as the figure was 1.7% in the Commission’s proposal).
Regarding the European Commission’s proposal to oblige Member States to renovate at least 3% of the total surface area of buildings forming part of all levels of public administration each year, Mr Fuglsang suggested extending it to buildings occupied – but not owned – by public bodies, as well as to tertiary buildings.
Binding national targets
In addition to increasing the targets, Fuglsang is also proposing that Member States’ national contributions to the EU’s 2030 target should now be binding.
Member States would be required to notify the Commission of these contributions, as well as a binding linear trajectory including two reference points in 2025 and 2027 for these contributions; this would form part of the updates of their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs).
Energy audit
The rapporteur is also suggesting that the energy consumption threshold above which companies would be required to implement an “energy management system” is lowered.
While the European Commission proposes that this obligation should apply to companies whose average annual energy consumption has exceeded 100 terajoules (TJ) over the past 3 years, Mr Fuglsang wants to set this threshold at 18 TJ.
Companies with an average annual energy consumption of more than 3.6 TJ over the previous 3 years (compared to the figure of 10 TJ in the Commission’s proposal) and which do not implement such a system, should be subject to an energy audit.
Other suggestions from the rapporteur include a proposal for drawing up a more robust definition of energy poverty that takes into account energy poverty in different regions, countries and types of households, as well as proposals on the Energy Efficiency First principle, data centres and district heating/cooling.
See the draft report: https://aeur.eu/f/el (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)