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Commission sets EU new energy strategy to 2020

A new European energy strategy to 2020 published by the European Commission on Wednesday repeats long-standing priorities but offers few new details on how to achieve them.

The strategy lists five priorities, including energy efficiency and an integrated European energy market. Action on these should enable the EU to meet its three long-term goals of ensuring security of supply, combating climate change and ensuring affordable energy, it says. But action is what the document is short on, even though the commission opens the strategy by describing existing policies as "wholly inadequate".

 There is "vast potential untapped" on energy efficiency, the strategy says. But its suggestions for action mainly repeat existing policy aims, such as tackling the problem that building owners do not invest in efficiency because the benefits go to tenants. One new idea is a suggestion to impose energy efficiency criteria on public procurement, which accounts for 16% of EU GDP. The commission also says electricity suppliers should be required to secure documented energy savings from their customers and promises to propose by mid-2011 new investment incentives and innovative financial instruments to accelerate building refurbishments.

MEPs and green groups are calling for the commission to propose making the EU's existing 20% greater energy efficiency by 2020 target binding. But the commission promises only its "staunch political commitment" to the target. The strategy acknowledges that oil supplies could become "very tight" before 2020, but offers few new ideas to reduce consumption beyond a general goal to empower consumers. Ideas on reducing demand for oil in transport are left to a future white paper on transport. EU energy commissioner Guenther Oettinger did say on Wednesday that oil would have to be replaced by alternatives in heating and cooling.

 An earlier estimate that €1trn will need to be invested in Europe's grids to upgrade and expand them is maintained. The internal energy market should be completed by 2015, the commission says. Further details will follow in an infrastructure package later this month. The commission suggests privileged access to public funds could overcome regional opposition to infrastructure projects where this arises. "A clear policy and common standards on smart metering and smart grids are needed well before 2020," it says. The strategy forms the agenda for a special summit on energy on 4 February and will be complemented by a strategy for 2050 next year.

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