To mark the 50th anniversary of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Agency’s annual ministerial meeting, the European Commissioner for Energy, Kadri Simson, highlighted, on Tuesday 13 February, technological innovation as a key element of the EU’s energy policy.
She participated in the first-ever Innovation Forum, as well as in a number of high-level thematic dialogues.
At a panel discussion on 50 years of global energy cooperation, the Commissioner outlined the EU’s innovation priorities for the coming years.
She referred to funding, such as the Innovation Fund and the Horizon Europe fund, the latter aimed at financing the next generation of decarbonisation technologies.
“The expected increase in renewable energies calls for major innovations in the transmission and distribution of electricity, as well as in the management of networks and storage”, she said, referring to the EU action plan adopted last November on the development of networks (see EUROPE 13302/8).
She also highlighted three important areas of technological innovation for the EU, namely solutions for the decarbonisation of energy-intensive industry, the development of renewable hydrogen in various sectors, and carbon capture, use and storage, in line with the strategy on industrial carbon management adopted the previous week (see EUROPE 13344/2).
In his introductory speech to the Innovation Forum, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol explained that, in order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, it was necessary to invest today in technologies that are not yet commercialised so that they can become a full part of the energy mix by 2030.
“It is necessary for each government to play a driving role in innovation by providing a leadership strategy and putting in place the necessary framework for private investors and others”, he said.
John Kerry, the US Special Envoy for Climate Change, was keen to silence the critics who claim that these investments are not the economic priority.
“The costs will be much higher if we don’t, and economies around the world will be much more affected by the disruption of supply chains, by competition for different resources (...)”, he insisted.
Also invited to speak on the specific subject of energy security during a thematic ministerial dialogue, Commissioner Simson welcomed the fact that the energy transition had been used as a tool to reduce dependency, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“Over the last two years, renewable energy production capacity has reached 130 GW, an absolute record for us”, she explained, adding that “according to the IEA, average wholesale electricity prices would have been 8% higher on the entire European market in 2022 (...) without the new renewable capacity installed”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)