In a series of documents exclusively obtained by Agence Europe, on Friday 5 December, the Commission details its draft package for strengthening the development of European grids, which it plans to officially present on 10 December.
To achieve its objectives of interconnectivity between Member States and the massive integration of renewable energy into the EU’s energy system, it has no hesitation in emphasising and reinforcing the “overriding interest” status of certain projects to speed up their implementation, even if this means simplifying the environmental requirements.
“While the environmental assessment is necessary to ensure both the protection of biodiversity and the social acceptance of projects, its present modalities do not effectively capture the specificity of projects with minimal environmental impact and can cause unnecessary delays”, writes the Commission.
The Commission is also preparing to present a new ‘omnibus’ regulation to simplify key pieces of environmental legislation (see other news).
Revision of the TEN-E Regulation. As part of this ‘grids’ package, the Commission also announced a revision of the TEN-E Regulation, which governs the guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure. Although the institution points out that this piece of legislation, already amended in 2022, remains “largely valid”, “shortcomings need to be addressed”.
The implementation of cross-border infrastructure projects is considered to be too slow, partly because of the difficulty in reaching agreements between Member States on the “cost sharing” for projects, and partly because of the slowness in granting permits for infrastructure projects.
The aim of this revision is therefore to simplify the permitting procedures for cross-border infrastructure projects of priority interest (between EU countries) or of mutual interest (between an EU country and a non-EU country) (PCI/PMI projects). The second PCI/PMI list was officially presented by the European Commission on 1 December in the form of a delegated act (see EUROPE 13763/9).
The revision thus aligns with the permitting measures introduced in the ‘gas’ package (see EUROPE 13675/16) and the revised Renewable Energy Directive (see EUROPE 13646/34), adopted in 2024 and 2023 respectively.
The proposal also stresses that electricity projects of common and mutual interest benefit from an “automatic presumption of overriding interest”, even if they conflict with other public interests.
Among other things, the new rules introduce the possibility of calling on “European coordinators”, nominated by the European Commission to provide assistance to PCI/PMI projects that are encountering major implementation difficulties.
The proposal also states that, to facilitate cost sharing, project promoters may group together two or more projects on the PCI/PMI list in order to facilitate discussions between the countries concerned.
Permitting. The package also includes a proposal for a directive aimed at speeding up the permitting process to cover all types of infrastructure that are neither included in the PCI/PMI list nor otherwise covered by European legislation. This is particularly true of electricity transmission and distribution networks, as opposed to hydrogen networks, which are covered by the 2024 ‘gas’ package.
In this case, the proposal also aims to introduce “additional flexibility in the application of environmental rules” and to ensure “a consistent permitting regime at EU level”.
The proposed amendments to the 2018 Directive on the Promotion of the Use of Energy from Renewable Sources and the 2019 Directive on Common Rules for the Internal Market for Electricity include removing the possibility for Member States to limit the application of “overriding public interest” to renewable energy projects covered by the Directive. However, this change does not apply to cultural heritage.
Member States are also no longer obliged to designate “large areas” where the installation of renewable energy plants and their infrastructure is restricted for environmental reasons.
Specific provisions target the acceleration of permitting procedures for autonomous energy storage, recharging stations and the hybridisation of renewable energy plants.
Energy Highways. Presented by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in September in her State of the Union address, the ‘Energy Highways’ initiative (see EUROPE 13706/5) aims to respond to the most urgent needs in terms of energy infrastructures.
The Commission undertakes to present “targeted short-term actions” to meet the specific challenges of each of these “Highways”. It aims to achieve results “within the next six to nine months”.
The eight Highways include the integration of the Iberian Peninsula with two additional interconnection projects across the Pyrenees to France. Last April, the Peninsula suffered a major power cut (see EUROPE 13723/2). Electricity supplies in Spain were partly restored thanks to support from neighbouring networks, in particular the interconnections between Spain, France and Morocco.
The documents: https://aeur.eu/f/jv9; https://aeur.eu/f/jva; https://aeur.eu/f/jvb; https://aeur.eu/f/jvc (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)