Leading light

Marie Shields talks to Christine Lins about the progress Europe has made towards reaching its ambitious renewable energy goals.

“More longterm, a very high percentage of 80-100 percent renewable energy share in final energy consumption can be envisaged”
-Christine Lins

According to Christine Lins, Secretary General of the European Renewable Energy Council (EREC), Europe is already well on its way to achieving the ambitious goal of having 20 percent of its energy generated by renewable sources by 2020. "We have exceeded 10 percent of renewable energy in final energy consumption within the European Union," she says. "We are on track, and we believe that with the Renewable Energy Framework Directive, which was adopted in May 2009 but was only recently published, we will see further impetus that this development will happen.

"The challenge is going to be that this 10 percent has mainly been achieved by five or six EU member states. We need to make sure that all 27 member states are taking renewables seriously and developing them to their full potential.

"Much of the development in renewables at the moment is coming from certain countries, such as Germany, Spain, Denmark, France, Italy and Sweden. However, there is a lot of potential in the other member states and we attach a lot of hope to the national renewable energy action plans that countries have to submit to the European Commission by June 2010.

"This is one of the major outlines in the renewables directive, that countries by June next year have to come up with strategies outlining how they foresee reaching their binding national renewable energy targets. These action plans will provide the stability and framework for making sure that the objectives are achieved."

The aggressive pursuit of a renewable energy policy can have other benefits apart from the obvious environmental ones: job creation, for example. Lins points out that Germany, for example, which has had a strong record of promoting renewables for a number of years, is benefiting not only in terms of energy share from renewables but also in terms of new employment opportunities.

"There are around 450,000 people employed in the renewable industry sector in Europe," she says. "Out of these, probably 285,000 are employed in Germany. This shows that the renewables industry is a factor for growth and sustainable development.

"We also see more and more big companies from various industries investing in renewables, because in the long term their operating costs are lower and more predictable than those of conventional fuels. Together with energy efficiency, investment in renewables is something we also see when analyzing different businesses."

Getting smart

Along with renewables, another main factor in the energy efficiency/environmental sustainability equation is modernizing electricity grids to make them more 'intelligent'.  To this end, EREC runs a project called the thematic network on ICT solutions, which aims to foster and promote the large-scale integration of domestic and distributed micro-generation, and to promote an improvement in energy efficiency through the implementation of a novel ICT solution into local smart power grids.

"Very clearly, the rapid deployment of renewables will require some changes in power grid infrastructures," Lins explains. "Decentralized generation needs to be taken up, and this means not only looking into the most feasible technical solutions, but also looking at non-technical barriers, because we know that often the lack of information about distributed generation is one of the main reasons utilities can still be resistant to adopting these technologies.

"There is another project in decentralized generation, called MASSIG, in which we elaborate marketing concepts and technological approaches on how to best sell electricity generation by distributed generation in the power range of up to several hundred kilowatts.The focus is on renewables and small co-generation in these projects."

When it comes to environmental sustainability, EREC isn't afraid to put its money where its mouth is. Its Brussels headquarters building, Renewable Energy House, is a showcase for the latest smart energy technologies. The council has completely refurbished the 140-year-old building and has equipped it with a series of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures.

"One hundred percent of our heating and cooling comes from renewables," Lins points out proudly. "A large part of the electricity is generated onsite through photovoltaics and the rest bought as green electricity from the grid. This is an example which, in the framework of the New4Old project, we are trying to duplicate all around Europe in both the private and public sectors. Everyone is welcome to come and have a look at how these technologies were integrated into the building."

Challenging times

Lins believes there is a lot at stake in the European power sector. "We are confronted with the fact that much of the current power generation capacity needs to be refurbished in the next few years. We need to get these decisions right, and the way we take them now will influence our attitude towards energy for the next 10-20 years.

"Renewables are the fastest growing new installed power generation capacity. More than half of the newly installed capacity in 2008 was renewables, with 57 percent from wind, photovoltaics and hydro together, followed by natural gas.

"It is going to be a challenge to increase the percentage of renewables in the electricity grid. There we will need to collaborate closely with utilities, GSOs and so forth. Another challenge is to make sure that renewables are properly used in houses on a large scale basis, so that the buildings of tomorrow on the one hand respect energy efficiency standards to a maximum, and on the other hand meet a large percentage of their energy needs from renewable energy sources.

"It is also key that the renewables directive is properly implemented and that we put in place ambitious national renewable energy action plans. All this is something that we are quite intensively working on. There are also other important aspects; for example, the training of installers for renewable energy installations is crucial, so that the installations are of high quality and generate the desired output."

Of course, Europe is not alone in its drive towards greater energy efficiency and sustainability - the US, not traditionally known for its forward-thinking energy policies, is also forging ahead, thanks to the renewed interest generated by the election of a more environment-oriented government.

The consensus seems to be that while the European renewable energy industry is ahead of its American counterpart, the US could make up this disparity in a relatively shor time - a view with which Lins concurs: "The Americans are catching up, because there is now a lot of political ambition, and we all know that if things start moving in the US they move rather quickly. It's going to be the challenge for the European industry, but we see this as a very positive competition."

New developments

In terms of the future, Lins points to the binding commitment given by the 27 heads of state that by 2020, 20 percent, or one-fifth of Europe's final energy consumption, will be generated by renewable energy. EREC's aim is that this 20 percent renewable energy will result in 33-40 percent of electricity coming from renewables by 2020, to about 25 percent renewable share in heating and cooling, and then 10 percent renewables in transport, most of this coming from biofuels.

"This is something that we think is absolutely feasible," Lins says. "We will do everything to make this happen. And I think we can go far beyond. We are currently starting the discussion in Europe about the perspective of 2050. More long-term, there is communication coming out of the European Commission that a very high percentage of 80-100 percent renewable energy share in final energy consumption can be envisaged.

"We expect a rapid increase in turnover figures. At the moment, the European renewable energy industry has an annual turnover of about €45 billion. We expect this to grow exponentially, and coupled with this will be the creation of a significant number of jobs. We have around 450,000 people working in the sector today; this figure is estimated to rise to 2 million by 2020. So I think the sector offers good prospects for a sustainable economic development, and the desired sustainable recovery of the economy, which we all need."

Christine Lins is Secretary General of the European Renewable Energy Council.