New EU energy rules
At the beginning of December 2018, the Council of the European Union agreed on new EU energy regulations for renewable energies and energy efficiency and issued measures to monitor progress. The European Parliament had already approved the regulatory package a few weeks ago, and now nothing stands in the way of its entry into force.
The new EU energy rules, an instrument for monitoring progress in climate and energy policy ("governance regulation"), require member states to submit national energy and climate plans for the period up to 2030 by the end of 2019, according to a release from the German Environment Ministry. This will develop long-term strategies for climate protection. Germany has already adopted such a long-term strategy for climate protection with its Climate Protection Plan 2050. Whether Switzerland is on the same path is written elsewhere. In any case, the EU Commission has committed itself to presenting a strategy on how Europe can achieve greenhouse gas neutrality as quickly as possible.
The Commission presented a proposal for this on November 28.
The recast of the Energy Efficiency Directive sets an energy savings target for 2030 of at least 32.5 percent compared with the trend. This represents an increase on the Commission's proposal, which was 30 percent. A target of 20 percent already applies for 2020. There is still a lot of untapped potential in energy efficiency.
Renewable Energies Directive
The new version of the Renewable Energies Directive stipulates that at least 32 percent of energy consumption (electricity, heat and transport) in the EU should come from renewable energies by 2030. The EU is well on track with the previously applicable target of 20 percent by 2020. The new 32 percent target is significantly more ambitious than the 27 percent originally proposed by the Commission. In the heating sector, member states are to increase the share of renewable energies by at least 1.1 percentage points per year.
In the transport sector, the share of renewable energies is to rise to 14 percent by 2030. In 2016, it was around seven percent.
The Renewable Energies Directive also specifies the extent to which biofuels can be counted. As before, the share of conventional biofuels from arable crops in total energy consumption in transport may not exceed seven percent. What is new is that member states can also stipulate a share of conventional biofuels of less than seven percent without having to compensate for this elsewhere. In line with the status quo, the German government only wants to count conventional biofuels up to a maximum share of 5.3 percent.
The crediting of biofuels from energy crops whose cultivation contributes to the deforestation of rainforests will be frozen at the 2019 level and is to be phased out completely in the period from 2023 to 2030. This is likely to have an impact on the use of palm oil in particular. The details of this are currently being worked out.
