Power Engineering - EC seeks binding national renewable sectoral targets in draft law

7 December 2007 - EU member states must adopt binding national sectoral targets for final use of renewable power and renewable heating and cooling to help meet the EU's 2020 renewables target, according to a draft of the European Commission's forthcoming EU renewables law.

"These targets shall be consistent with their overall target and their target for the share of renewable energy sources in transport," says the draft.

In March EU leaders backed EC proposals for a binding 10 per cent biofuels share by 2020 in each member state, as well as an overall binding EU target of 20 per cent renewables by 2020 to be broken down into 27 binding national targets.

The draft law specifies that the renewables' share must be measured as final use, and that only renewable heat and power produced within the EU can be counted. Imported biofuels would have to meet environmental sustainability criteria to be counted.

The 2020 target would mean increasing the EU's present 8.5 per cent final use
renewables' share by 11.5 percentage points over the next 12 years.

The draft seen by Platts does not include the EC's proposed overallnational targets. But EC energy official Tom Howes told a Brussels conference late last month that the national targets would be based on a flat rate increase of 5.75 percentage points for all 27 member states, with the division of the remaining 5.75 percentage points determined by national gross domestic product.

"This is certainly fair," he said. "We think it stands a good chance of getting through the EU council [of member states] still recognisable in the end."

EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs is visiting member states to explain the methodology used for setting the national targets, but an EC source stressed that the EC was "not negotiating targets."

Piebalgs told Platts last month that the differences between member states and the EC on the targets were "only a couple of percentage points."

Member states would also have to meet intermediate overall targets, says the draft. In 2014, their renewables share would have to be at least their 2005 share plus 51 per cent of the difference between this share and their 2020 target.

This increases to 66 per cent of the difference in 2016 and 83 per cent of the difference in 2018.

Member states would also have to meet a fixed intermediate target of at least 6.5 per cent for renewables' share in transport in 2012, says the draft.

Member states would have to set out their national sectoral targets in national action plans, says the draft, along with the measures for achieving them. These plans would have to be submitted to the EC by March 31, 2010 at the latest.

The EC plans to adopt the final version of the draft EU renewables law, including the national targets, January 23, 2008 as part of a wider climate change package.

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