In a report published on Thursday (14 April), it said the environmental and social benefits would outweigh the required investments.
The report provides a roadmap to 2050 for different renewable technologies, arguing that 100% renewables is both economically feasible and environmentally desirable.
EREC predicts the largest increase to take place in renewable electricity, driven by wind and photovoltaic (PV) solar, with its share of total energy demand rising from 10% in 2020 to 18% in 2030 and 41% by 2050. It also expects the renewable heating and cooling market from biomass, solar thermal and geothermal applications to take off quickly, comprising 21% of the EU’s total energy consumption in 2030 and 45% in 2050.
Transport will remain the biggest challenge for renewable energies, according to EREC. But as conversion technologies for biofuels and electric vehicles enter the market on a large scale after 2020, it expects the share of renewable transport fuels in Europe's energy consumption to increase from 3% in 2020 to 10% in 2050.
EREC stressed that the technologies required to achieve a 100% renewables scenario are already available and it is simply a matter of finding the political will to make it happen.
Studies on 2050 energy scenarios have started to proliferate as the European Commission prepares its own roadmap, scheduled to be presented in early 2011.
The report follows the release of an extensive study by the European Climate Foundation (ECF), which found that the EU could cut its emissions by at least 80% with renewables-based energy generation, without making electricity more expensive than continuing with current fossil-fuel based infrastructures (EurActiv 14/04/10).
But unlike the Foundation, the EREC did not model the future energy system in detail. Instead, it sought to demonstrate the feasibility of an entirely renewables-based vision, which was only briefly assessed by the more comprehensive ECF study.
The vision will, however, not come without additional investment in Europe. EREC calculated that the EU will have to fork out €963 billion by 2020 to pay for its renewables shift. By 2050, total cumulative investment will reach €2,800 billion, it said.
On the other hand, the resulting CO2 cuts could save Europe €492 billion in 2020 or 3.8 trillion in 2050 assuming that carbon prices rise, the report shows.
"Higher upfront investment for renewable energy does pay off in the long-run as the capital investment cost will be outweighed by the avoided fossil fuel and CO2 costs," said EREC President Arthouros Zervos.
Moreover, should Europe follow the suggested pathway, the European renewable energy industry could create new employment that would more than compensate for jobs lost in traditional energy generation, the report argued. It said the industry could employ 6.1 million people by 2050, which is a drastic increase from 550,000 people today.
In order to get to 100%, the EU needs to quickly move beyond its 2020 goals by setting itself binding renewables targets for 2030, Zervos said. He added that the EU would need a binding energy efficiency target as well as a roadmap on how to reduce energy consumption.
The EU will have to pay attention to the effective implementation of the new Renewables Directive and full liberalisation of the energy market, the EREC said. It also urged the bloc to introduce an EU-wide carbon tax.
