EU agrees to lift renewables target to 42.5 pct of overall energy use by 2030

German economy minister Robert Habeck has welcomed a deal among EU institutions to raise the target share of renewable energy in the bloc’s overall energy consumption.

“Today’s decisions are a huge success for the European Union,” said Habeck in a press release. “All over Europe, the pace of the energy transition is speeding up, also to become independent of fossil imports more quickly.”

EU member states (EU Council) and the European Parliament concluded negotiations on a key legislative element of the European Green Deal – the reform of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), which is also a part of the legislative package to help the bloc reduce greenhouse gasemissions by 55 percent by 2030 – the Fit for 55 package.

The agreement raises the EU’s binding 2030 target for the share of renewable energy consumption to a minimum of 42.5 percent (with an additional 2.5% voluntary top up), up from the current 32 percent target — almost doubling the existing share of renewable energy in the EU.

The institutions also agreed on binding sector targets to ensure the use of renewable energy beyond the electricity sector. In addition, certain rules to speed up planning and permits for renewable projects — which were temporarily introduced as a response to the energy crisis — will become permanent.

Kerstin Andreae, head of the energy industry association BDEW, called the 42.5-percent-target ambitious, and said that it was all the more important now to “drastically speed up” permit procedures.

However, German umbrella organisation for environmental NGOs DNR criticised that talks did not yield an even higher renewable energy target, given that both the European Commission and the European Parliament had proposed to raise it to 45 percent.

“It is bitter news that despite the energy and climate crisis, the EU member states could not agree on an appropriate expansion target for renewable energy by 2030,” said managing director Florian Schöne.

This story was published by Clean Energy Wire. Reproduced with permission.