European Union News - Energy

Raising $100 billion per year by 2020 in developing countries “will be challenging but it can be done” according to a European Commission staff working document on "Scaling up international climate finance after 2012". The staff working report also states that it is possible if the right balance is struck between public funding, funding raised from international carbon markets, as well as private funds, partly leveraged by development banks.

25 winners from 14 countries across the three categories have been awarded this year's edition of the energy efficiency awards which is managed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission's in-house science arm.

Running from 11 to 15 April, the EU Sustainable Energy Week will feature this year nearly 150 events in Brussels and over 450 Energy Days throughout 43 countries in Europe and around the Mediterranean, with more than 30,000 participants. This includes presentations of new projects, debates and conferences. The core event will take place in Brussels in order to debate on the best use of energy efficiency and renewable energy across Europe.

According to a report from the EU-funded UPWIND ('Integrated wind turbine design') project, giant 20 megawatt (MW) wind turbines are feasible and could provide a cost-effective way of expanding Europe's offshore wind capacity and providing cheaper electricity.

At the second part of the meeting of the Council of the European Union held in Brussels between 24 and 25 March, Heads of State and Government debated over the lessons to be drawn from the events that occurred in Japan, notably as regards nuclear safety. In this regard, the Council has recalled that the energy mix is the competence of Member States, and has agreed to make safety revisions on all nuclear plants.

EU ministers in charge for energy met in Brussels on 22 March to held a debate over the recent developments in Japan and North Africa and their implications in global energy market and consequences over European energy supply. Briefed by the Commission over the last developments, ministers discussed the measures to be taken both at EU and national level. Regarding the debate around nuclear security, ministers pointed out that the global character of this issue would need for neighbouring countries to be involved in this risk assessment process.

The European Economic and Social Committee has suggested in its opinion on energy supply and neighbourhood policy, that the European Union should consider the security of its energy supply as one of the priorities of its external policy. In this opinion, the Committee came out in favour of appointing a high representative for energy policy to ensure that Europe speaks with one voice in this area.

Policy makers and industry representatives meeting at the coordination meeting convened by the Commissioner Günther Oettinger to analyze the situation caused in Fukushima nuclear power plant after the earthquake and tsunami which affected Japan in the previous days, agreed to hold stress tests in all nuclear power plants of the European Union. The European Commission will determine the timing and common standards for such tests which will assess preparedness and resilience of these facilities in view of an eventual incident.

The European Commission adopted on 8 March a Roadmap for transforming the European Union into a competitive low carbon economy by 2050. The Roadmap describes the cost-effective pathway to reach the EU's objective of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and gives direction to sectoral policies, national and regional low-carbon strategies and long-term investments.

The European Commission adopted on 8 March a Plan aimed to improve energy efficiency in the European Union by the implementation of concrete measures. These measures would create important benefits for households, businesses as well as public authorities, and could represent annual savings of 1.000 euro per household.