In a report sent to the Council of the European Union on 16 August, the European Commission gave a rather positive assessment of the implementation of the ‘European Energy Programme for Recovery’ (EEPR) and the ‘European Energy Efficiency Fund’ (EEEF).
The EEPR supported 44 energy infrastructure projects for a total of €2,267,574,462, of which €1,692,273,968 had already been disbursed to beneficiaries by 31 December 2021.
Of the projects, 38 have been completed to date (12 in the electricity sector, 13 in the gas interconnectors area and 13 in the reverse gas flow and interconnection projects in Central and Eastern Europe), two gas interconnection projects are underway and are expected to be completed in 2022 and 2026, while four other projects have been terminated.
For offshore wind energy, seven of the nine projects supported by the EEPR have been finalised. The other two were terminated prematurely. Financial support from the EEPR amounted to €427,190,976.
However, the results are less positive for the ‘carbon capture, transport and storage’ (CCS) component. Out of six projects supported by the EEPR for an amount of €387,099,179, only one was closed. Four projects were terminated prematurely due to the promoters’ decision not to invest and one project ended without being completed.
The financial support from EEPR was thus “not sufficient to prompt companies to realise commercial-scale CCS demonstration projects”, the report points out.
As a financial mechanism to support sustainable energy projects, the EEEF has supported 17 projects worth €176 million since its inception in December 2010 and through 30 September 2021. It generated an estimated final investment of €324 million and saved around 584,235 tonnes of CO2 and 769,801 MWh of primary energy.
See the report: https://aeur.eu/f/2u5 (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)