The European People's Party's member of the EU parliament Markus Pieper presented an amendment draft to the EU's Third Renewable Energy Directive (RED III), with new requirements for the promotion of renewable energy and green fuels.
The proposed draft introduced the obligation to develop at least two joint projects with other EU member states to produce renewable electricity, while member states with electricity consumption of more than 100 TWh/yr will co-develop a third joint project. These projects must be other than those envisaged by the Trans-European Network for Energy (TEN-E) programme.
In line with the draft, member states must set an indicative target of at least 5pc of all renewable additions from 2025-35 to belong to innovative renewable energy technologies. Those that do not price carbon in the building sector through a tax, or that have opted out from the EU ETS in the building and transport sectors, must increase their renewable share.
In addition, no fees linked to the financing of the renewable energy deployment should be charged to companies participating in power purchase agreements, in contrast with recent renewable clawback initiatives.
The amendment also calls for legal certainty of planning and permit-granting procedures, particularly in relation to onshore wind and hydrogen power plants.
The draft requires member states to establish a harmonised European guarantees of origin (GOO) system that allows for time-granularity and locational matching while avoiding double-counting with the existent system. This uniform GOO system should include certificates issued for low-carbon hydrogen.
The amendment lowered the requirement for hydrogen for final industrial consumption by 2030 being made from renewable fuels of non-biological origin to 40pc, from the 50pc established in the precedent draft, although it indicates that by 2035 such contribution in final industrial hydrogen must hit 70pc.
In the transport sector, the draft raises the share of advanced biofuels and biogas for energy to 0.4pc by the end of this year, 1pc by 2025 and 5pc by 2030, and adds a minimum share of low-carbon hydrogen of 5pc also by 2030.
Last July, the European Commission proposed a revision to the RED III, increasing the EU target to a minimum 40pc of renewable energy sources in the overall energy mix by 2030. Later on, EU-wide solar association SolarPower suggested that in order to meet the Fit-for-55 package goal a target of 45pc was necessary.
