On 9 October, the European Council adopted a new Renewables Energy Directive dedicated to raise the share of renewable energy in the Europe’s overall energy consumption. With each Member State contributing, the common target is to reach a 45% mark of renewable energy usage in the overall energy consumption. This Directive falls under the ‘Fit for 55’ package presented by the European Commission on 14 July 2021.
This new directive is of high importance for cities participating in the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) as with this new Directive, each member state will work on ambitious sector-specific targets in areas linked to the ICC sectors: Renewable energy, Mobility solutions and Construction & buildings.
The new Directive set ambitious targets for several sectors including: Transport, Industry, Buildings, heating & cooling, Bioenergy but also will help deliver permits for renewable energy projects faster.
For the Transport sector, the European Council defined two targets to choose from, either reducing the greenhouse gas intensity of 14.5% or reach at least 29% share of renewables within the final consumption of energy in the transport sector. Both targets are set for 2030. In addition, rules are established on the advanced biofuels and renewable fuels of non-biological origin.
Looking at the Industry sector, the focus is to raise the usage of renewable energy annually by 1.6%. After discussion with Member States, ambitious targets regarding hydrogen are set for 2030 (42%) and 2035 (60%) to shift the source to renewable fuels of non-biological origin.
Regarding the Construction sector, several rules are now implemented to reach 49% renewable energy share in buildings by 2030. For the heating and cooling industries, renewable targets are set to increase of 0.8% per year until 2026 and of 1.1% annually until 2030.
More information about the Renewable Energy Directive is available here.
More information on the ‘Fit for 55’ package: how the EU plans to boost renewable energy is available here.