Renewables: 'We take our heads of state seriously' 

Oliver Schäfer is Policy Director for the Brussels-based European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), an umbrella organisation that represents the interests of Europe's renewable energy industry at EU level.   

Please click here to read a shortened version of the interview.

Let's start by looking at the 20% targets – how do you see the share being divided, roughly speaking, between the different renewables, such as solar or wind power?

We have a very concrete estimation of how we see the 20% target unfolding. Obviously, biomass will play a major role in heating, cooling and electricity as well – and in the fuels target anyway. It will be a major contributor – and then wind will be a major contributor too. But I would not call them winning or leading technologies. The mix of renewables is the important story.

Biomass for heating does not seem to be very high on the agenda – it seems to be mostly biomass, or rather biofuels, for transport. How do you see this evolving? 

There is much more potential for biomass than just the 10% biofuels target, so we have potential for additional biomass in heating and in electricity, and also particularly in combined heat and power. 

Just because the debate is focused around biofuels does not mean that this will not change. I assume that the Commission will come up with a proposal for a Directive including measures on biofuels, and measures for renewable heating and renewable electricity. The Commission will address all three sectors (heating/cooling, electricity and biofuels) equally, and biomass will play a role in all three sectors, which is why biomass is by far the biggest contributor of all to the 20% target because it contributes to all three sectors.

Concerning the recent report by industry lobby group BusinessEurope, claiming that the 20% target should be revisited entirely, what is your reaction?

There is a decision made by the heads of state, based on a fundamental scientific impact assessment done by the Commission already. The European Commission – one of the most credible institutions in Europe – has made this assessment, and now BusinessEurope is calling for another impact assessment. So I do not honestly know what they want. And if they were to look to their members, there is one of the most dynamic industries, which is the renewable energy industry, with growth rates of beyond 20-25% over the past ten years amongst their membership.

Serious forecasts, for example by Roland Berger – a consultancy not patricularly known for 'tree-hugging' – forecasted that by 2020, the German environment industry, including renewables, will have overtaken the steel and car industry combined. So the environment industry within Germany in 2020 will be bigger than the German steel and car industries put together. BusinessEurope would be better off looking ahead rather than fighting old fights.

One of the main criticisms concerning the 20% target is that there is no industrial policy at European level to back this target, with crucial decisions left to the member states. What is your opinion about this? Would you have preferred to see something more substantial? 

I think we should not talk about what we have expected in the past. The Council asked the Commission not simply to come up with numbers dividing the 20% target for the different member states, but they asked the Commission to come up with a Framework Directive containing mechanisms on how to fulfil the targets – leaving flexibility to the member states on very concrete and detailed issues. 

But it is more than just setting an ambitious target and talking about it, so this is why I do not understand the criticism. They decided to bind themselves – to put an obligation, which will then be distributed into 27 national binding obligations, including measures proposed by the Commission and adopted by the Parliament and the Council, so there is more than just setting an ambitious target. The 20% target is ambitious in our eyes, but they called for more – they called for a road map on how to achieve the 20%. 

We know that there is this package coming up in the Autumn, and we know that there will be specific targets for each country, and possibly suggestions as to how they should achieve them. What are your expectations as to the specifics?

To put in concretely, what we expect is a proposal for a Directive that contains a breakdown of the 20% target into national targets. One option for doing that could be to share the target equally among the member states. Increasing the renewables share from today's figure of 7% to 20% means an increase of 13 percentage points. This could be the target for each member state, the same increase by 13 percentage points. This would avoid lengthy discussions about assumptions and could be a charming political solution. There is no scientific evidence that this would not be feasible. And this approach is already being used, for example in the energy efficiency directive. 

But this is only one part of the story. The other part is that within this package, we have concrete regulations for the three different sectors. We have regulations for example that are removing administrative barriers in all sectors – very concretely and at the European level. 

Are you confident that this push for renewables will actually happen? 

I believe that the heads of state meant their commitments seriously. And I assume that we take our heads of state seriously.

Concerning the Directive on heating and cooling for renewables: it has been promised for a long time, and then it was never proposed. Do you expect it to be part of the package?

I assume that the Commission will use this Framework Directive to address all three sectors in renewables, and within this, put the measures that they know are necessary for increasing the share of renewables heating that they already wanted to put in the renewable heating directive – now they have put it under the roof of the Framework Directive. 

What are the main obstacles to reaching a significant share of renewable energies by 2020? 

The first obstacle is that we have not addressed the neglected sector of renewables-heating over the past couple of years. This is the main obstacle. We did not address it in the legislation. More than 40% of our total energy consumption in Europe is used in the heating sector. 

Then in the electricity sector, we need to address the member states that have not so far transposed the European Directive. So, some member states have simply not done their homework yet. So we need to address this. 

Then one obstacle is obviously the lack of a level playing field. You still have massive subsidies to the conventional energy sector; you still have a Euratom treaty giving nuclear energy very special treatment on the European level. This needs to be removed.

There was a recent report from the International Energy Agency warning Germany stating that it could not complete its nuclear phase-out and fulfil its consumption needs at the same time. How do you react to such a claim?

All evidence shows that Germany is able to phase out nuclear and at the same time replace it with renewables. One example – in July, they celebrated a goal in Germany. The goal was the 2010 renewable electricity target of 12.5%. They met it three years early. With a continuation of the existing policy, I am confident that nuclear power can be replaced in Germany, according to the forecasts of bodies other than the IEA.

It seems that for many 'average' citizens there is still a sense that nuclear is the fall-back position, and that phasing out nuclear is too risky as we may not have our energy needs met. If you were to respond to someone who was not so well-versed in these issues, and you had a few sentences to convince them of the potential of renewables…

Nuclear has a 2% share in our global energy supply – if you tell me that mankind is not able to replace 2% of its energy supply, I would be surprised. We are not talking here about 70 or 80% - we are talking about 2% of the global energy supply coming from nuclear. We can fly to the moon, that is much more challenging.

Looking ahead to ten or 20 years from now, which technologies do you see making the most progress? 

I see that we need a major breakthrough in biofuels technology. Without that breakthrough, I see huge challenges in order to meet our 10% biofuels target. But I am pretty sure that with the increased attention towards biofuels, the breakthrough will come over the next couple of years. 

What about using more and more waste as a resource? Do you include that in biomass?

We have a European definition of biodegradable waste, which we support. So the biodegradable part of waste is obviously a renewables part of the story, which can be used, and which you should pay attention to.