European Union News - Energy

The European Commission allocated additional EU funding for Ukraine for 2012. The support is part of the Eastern Partnership and will focus on energy reform and the involvement of citizens in local development. This is the second part of the Annual Action Programme 2012 for Ukraine. The first part of the programme was adopted in August 2012 and amounted to €70 million.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) published a report which shows that households and industry in the EU were largely responsible for the emissions increase in 2010, together leading to an additional 90 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent compared to 2009. Households and industry in the EU each cause approximately a quarter of energy-related greenhouse gas emissions, according to the report.

The European Commission launched a public consultation on the future development of unconventional fossil fuels such as shale gas in Europe. All interested individuals, organisations and public authorities are welcome to share their views before 20 March 2013 on the possible opportunities and challenges that may arise from the development of such projects and on the best ways to address the challenges identified so far.

23 European highly innovative demonstration projects in the field of energy will receive €1.2 billion from the first call of the NER300 Programme. These projects will cover a wide range of renewable technologies such as bioenergy, concentrated solar power, geothermal, wind and ocean energy resources, or distributed renewable management – i.e., smart grids.

The new European environmental rules on marine fuels came into force on December 17th 2012. The aim of these new standards is to improve the environmental conditions of marine corridors by reducing air pollution and its impact on human health.

The Council conclusions on renewable energy adopted on 3 December set out a set of priorities among which included the internal electricity market opening, a better market integration of renewable energy sources, more cooperation and trade between member states, and the adoption of the energy infrastructure package as soon as possible.

The Permanent Representatives Committee of the Council endorsed the agreement reached with the European Parliament on 27 November 2012 on the regulation on guidelines for trans-European energy infrastructure. To enter into force it still needs formal approval in the Parliament (early 2013) and in the Council (after the plenary vote in the Parliament).

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted financial support to large complex to be built Ouarzazate in southern Morocco. This plant will produce about 160 MW of electricity per year in its first phase of operation and will quadruple this capacity when being at its full capacity.