Sustainable energy week fuels energy debate

EU politicians and lobby groups will next week highlight the gaps in Europe’s policy on renewable energy.

The three-day European Renewable Energy Policy Conference in Brussels (29-31 January) will see almost 700 participants discuss the role of renewable energy in Europe today, including what was left out of a wide-ranging energy package on 10 January.

European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs and German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, as representative of Germany’s presidency of the EU, are set to open the talks.

The conference is the main event in a European Commission-organised ‘sustainable energy week’, running from 29 January to 2 February. Renewable energy supporters hope it will be a chance to push the Commission towards more sector specific renewable energy targets.

The energy review proposed only a general renewable energy target of 20% by 2020, disappointing lobbyists who had hoped for targets in the heating and cooling sectors and a 2020 electricity target.

"We have to make sure renewable energy takes off in all sectors," said Mahi Sideridou from conservation group Greenpeace.

"A framework for a sectoral approach would make sure the 20% target would happen."

Sideridou said that she hoped the conference would help ministers understand the importance of renewable energy, ahead of the spring European Council at which EU leaders will discuss the energy review and agree next steps.

The conference will ask participants to consider renewable heating and cooling in particular. "This policy hole is jeopardising the chances of the EU to reach its overall target for renewable energies," according to a statement by the European Renewable Energy Council.

The conference will also consider ways of turning EU energy policies into world energy policies, in the face of political disagreements with the US and fears over rising carbon dioxide emissions in developing countries.

Marianne Osterkorn, director of the international Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership, said the EU needed to make more of its position as the "world leader" in the renewable power sector.

"We need to look a little bit beyond the EU. Look at all the possibilities in the east, for example. Think of all the market opportunities and technology opportunities in developing countries. I have a feeling the EU energy knowledge is not visible enough in the rest of the world," Osterkorn said.

She said this problem was not down to a lack of interest but a lack of funds. "There just doesn’t seem to be enough money to communicate that we are the front-runners. If I invite someone from the Commission to a conference in the US, they often don’t even have enough money to cover travel."

But she added that Europe in particular needed to balance this ‘big picture’ thinking with ways of making some cities and small regions independent of energy imports.

EU politicians and lobby groups will next week highlight the gaps in Europe’s policy on renewable energy.