Leaked EU renewable energy report

Playbook has seen a Commission progress report on its renewable energy targets, to be published Wednesday.

Commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete told Playbook that U.S. President Trump won’t be a bump on the EU renewables road: “Despite the current geopolitical uncertainties, Europe is forging ahead with the clean energy transition. For us, there is no alternative,” he said. “The facts speak for themselves: renewable energy is now cost-competitive and sometimes cheaper than fossil fuels, employs over one million people in Europe.”

The main takeaways of the leaked report …

The good news: The EU is on track to hit its 2020 target of 20 percent of energy coming from renewable sources (it is closing in on 17 percent overall, and already 27 percent of electricity is renewable). Wind power quadrupled between 2004-2015 (as wind energy prices dropped more than 30 percent), solar prices fell by 80 percent between 2010 and end of 2015.

The bad news: Investment in the EU in renewables is falling. Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are likely to miss their binding national 2020 targets.

Russian dependence shrinks: The EU is now less dependent on Russian oil and gas and saves €16 billion a year on fossil fuel imports.

The climate bonus: Renewables reduced EU emissions by the equivalent of Italy’s emissions.