“RED”, the new “Renewable Energy Directive”, made the Brussels negotiators see red. If an agreement on this text, which more or less aims to double by 2030 the quantity of renewable energies in the overall energy consumption of the European Union (EU), was reached on Thursday, March 30 in the morning, in this last straight line, fifteen hours of thorny talks will have been necessary for a common ground to be cleared.
According to the terms of the agreement reached between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, the EU must reach, by 2030, the bar of 42.5% of renewable energies in its final energy consumption. The Commission and the European Parliament demanded a rate of 45%, while the Council pleaded for 40%. So it was decided to cut the pear in half.
The expected acceleration is in any case very clear. The target set in 2018 was to achieve 32% green energy by the end of the decade. The European average is currently around 22%. France is around 19%, against 13% in 2012. «We have been on the same trajectory as Germany for fifteen years,” we argue at the Ministry of Energy Transition.
“Ambitious” goal
But how to achieve that 42.5% target – which EU Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson has called a” ambitious “. It is on this that the negotiators have long opposed. There has been a lot of debate on the development of biomass, defended in particular by the Scandinavian countries, but denounced by certain NGOs who fear that this is the door open to more deforestation.
But the most sensitive point concerned the fate to be reserved for nuclear power in the green transition. For a few weeks, the Twenty-Seven have been clashing on the subject. Several countries, Germany in the lead, refused to include nuclear energy in a text on renewables, on the pretext that this would slow down the deployment of green energies. France, supported by a dozen States, recalled for its part that nuclear power emits less CO2 than solar and wind power and that it would be difficult to do without it to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050.
Convoluted compromise
Finally, a rather convoluted compromise, but of which we do not yet know the details, was found with a “specific status” granted to nuclear power, qualified as “ni vert ni fossil”. The provisional agreement, which has yet to be formally validated, also refers to “low carbon hydrogen”, which is produced from electricity of nuclear origin.
“We are a long way from American pragmatism and simplicity, but it gives manufacturers a framework,” underlines Philippe Boucly, the president of France Hydrogène, while regretting however “this infernal chain established by Brussels which necessarily associates decarbonization and renewables”.
With the proposed text, countries that have a lot of nuclear power in their energy mix will be able to use part of it to make hydrogen. On the French side, it was a sticking point in the negotiations. “Clearly, France will not be obliged to build additional renewable capacities to produce hydrogen specifically, but will be able to use its reactors”, underlines a source in Brussels.
France remains cautious
The French government is also displaying its satisfaction with this text, while being very cautious. “The elements of the compromise are on the table”, emphasizes Agnès Pannier-Runacher, the Minister for Energy Transition, emphasizing the recognition of the role of nuclear power in achieving decarbonization objectives as well as low-carbon hydrogen.
“The pro-nuclear countries have made progress, their task has been made more difficult by the opposition of the European Parliament, but they have not failed”, explains for his part the German MEP Markus Pieper (European People’s Party), who took part in the negotiations.
After having increased the pressure in recent days, Paris therefore prefers to be discreet. «Above all, do not give the feeling of having won on nuclear power, because the road is still long”, deciphers a specialist in the sector in Brussels. Several issues are still on the table, in particular the reform of the electricity market and state aid for the construction of new reactors.