Tag: electricity infrastructure

EU energy ministers have teamed up with electricity grid operators and environmental groups to counter the NIMBY syndrome on new renewable energy infrastructure builds.

Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger, whose efficiency directive has been gutted by member states, yesterday (14 February) pleaded with Europe’s energy ministers to back his department’s remaining flagship, a €9.1-billion energy infrastructure package.

In March, the European Network of Transmission Systems Operators (ENTSO-E) will submit a comprehensive 10-year plan for public consultation which shows that most of the continent’s investments in electricity infrastructure will be “driven directly or indirectly by renewable integration concerns,” ENTSO-E told EurActiv.

Experimental technology to capture, store and bury carbon emissions in geological formations is in line to receive a payout of as much as €1.37 billion from the EU’s energy infrastructure package, EurActiv has learned. 

EU plans to move towards a low-carbon economy depend upon a transformed cross-border transmissions system that can integrate renewables and smart meters alike, offering energy consumption savings at source. But is Europe on track to meet the challenge?

A new multi-billion-euro EU fund for transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructure is causing concern among regions, which fear being sidelined by national authorities when it comes to allocating the money. EurActiv France reports.

€200 billion is needed to upgrade Europe's gas and electricity grids over the coming decade, the European Commission said yesterday (17 November), adding that half of the sum will have to come from government coffers at a time of budgetary presssure.

Only European electricity network planning will deliver the required transmission capacity to meet current energy challenges and optimise the use of existing networks and power plants, Brussels-based think-tank Bruegel said yesterday (7 June). Its new analysis shows that upcoming EU legislation will not be enough to do the trick.

Europe will need to invest up to 28 billion euros in electricity infrastructure over the next five years to secure its key energy goals, including integrating renewable energies into the grid, Konstantin Staschus, secretary-general of the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), told EurActiv in an interview.

Developing smart grids will require changing the financing model of electricity distribution as current practice is mainly focused on cutting costs, representatives of the industry said last week (26 November).

The European Investment Bank (EIB) yesterday (28 September) inked a loan of 300 million euros to lay an electricity cable between Ireland and Wales.

Eight Baltic Sea states last week (17 June) launched an action plan to connect Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to EU energy networks, providing a signpost for the Swedish Presidency's agenda for the Baltic Sea region.

A move by national electricity operators to set up a joint coordination centre to develop daily grid availability forecasts was applauded by the European Commission, which hopes similar collaboration will be repeated elsewhere in Europe.

French and Spanish leaders have promised to move forward a stalled project to interconnect France and Spain's electricity grid across the Pyrenees, following a preliminary report by former EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti.

Speaking to EurActiv.fr, MEP Anne Laperrouze (ALDE/UDF) highlights the problems posed by the liberalisation of energy markets, and insists that the Union must maintain European 'energy champions'.

Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs has welcomed the move by France, Belgium and the Netherlands as the first step towards European-wide integration of electricity markets, as member states struggle to agree on common energy policy.

European regulators have launched an enquiry over the power cut that briefly left 10 million people in the dark last week-end. But the outing also raised questions about the grid's ability to cope with the addition of renewable energy sources.

Researchers at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KUL) look at worldwide liberalisation initiatives in the electricity industry and comparatively assess the potential for further development of the European Internal Electricity Market (IEM).

In its general approach to the proposals on the security of electricity supply, the Energy Council has reduced the Commission's power in decisions on infrastructure investments.