|
Clean Energy for Europe
International Parliamentary Hearing for European Legislators
13th – 14th December 2008 at Palace Bedlewo, Poznan, Poland
Co-Sponsored by the World Future Council
This hearing took place immediately after the United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change at Poznan which took place in the first two weeks of December 2008. At our hearing, legislators from Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Greece and Italy joined their colleagues from Poland on 13th and 14th of December to discuss the supergrid and renewable energy at the Polish Academy of Sciences, an hour’s drive outside the city.
Palace Bedlewo, where the hearing took place
The MPs heard a number of expert presentations. MEP Rebecca Harms and Dirk Hendricks from the World Future Council explained different aspects of the EU’s recently approved climate package. Both said that they did not think the package was sufficiently ambitious. Mr Hendricks said that the lack of financial penalties for states not achieving their national targets meant that the legislation was likely to be ineffective.
Grzegorz Wisniewski, President of the Institute for Renewable Energy in Poland, provided an overview of the use of renewables in Central and Eastern Europe. He drew the legislators’ attention to the heavy dependence on coal as a source of fuel for power generation – particularly in Poland and Estonia – and said that biomass was the most common form of renewable. He said that there was potential in the further development of biomass but also in developing wind power in the region.
Stefan Schurig from the World Future Council explained how Germany had become a world leader in the production of PV panels through introducing a feed-in tariff law and he detailed some of the key features of this law: the costs of connecting need to be paid by the energy companies, the incentive must be on a long term basis (usually no less than 20 years) and the tariff must be adjusted to the state of development of the technology.
Jadranko Medak from the Slovenian Ministry of Economy gave an overview of the importance of renewable energy in Slovenia’s energy sector, and how this has been encouraged through policy initiatives. Drawing on Slovenia’s experience, Mr. Medak focussed on identifying the various barriers to developing renewable energy sources (RES), and then explained the provisions put in place to overcome these barriers. He particularly noted the importance of a regulatory framework that allows for guaranteed return on investment in RES projects.
Nick Dunlop, secretary general of the e-Parliament began the second day by introducing the e-Parliament’s Supergrid Initiative. Mr Dunlop explained that there were three big advantages to the supergrid: solar power could be gathered in the desert where it is most powerful; wind energy could be collected over a wide area which makes wind a more stable source of supply; and existing hydro projects could be used to back up the whole electricity supply system for times when there is little wind or sunshine.
Dr. Gerhard Knies, coordinator of the Trans-European Energy Corporation, said that we need to approach climate change as a security issue if we are to make real changes. To facilitate a large scale transition to renewables, he once again put forward the ideas of DESERTEC that the world should be powered from solar thermal power stations in the deserts. Dr.Knies said that just two weeks of sun in the world’s deserts would be equivalent to all conventional oil reserves (known and expected), and he demonstrated how solar power from deserts could provide enough energy for the whole world.
Dr. Gregor Czisch from the University of Kassel in Germany also supported the idea of a supergrid but his idea was to use it to distribute wind energy rather than solar. According to Dr. Czisch, we should select regions like northern Russia, parts of Kazakhstan, Southern Morocco and Mauritania and draw wind energy from these areas, linking it with Europe, thus getting the best match of production and electricity demand. In these areas, seasonal fluctuations are minimal and the wind potential in July and January is quite similar. In particular Czisch singled out Morocco as a place that has good winds in the summer – at the precise time that Europe’s supply from wind energy required boosting.
The hearing stimulated some lively debates about the feasibility of the Supergrid project, with financial, infrastructural and security issues being raised by some participants. Legislators from Poland and the Czech Republic were uncertain about the need for such a large project and expressed some concern about energy security and the consequences of depending on northern African countries for Europe’s power supply.
On the other hand, German, Italian and Greek legislators felt that this energy interdependence would actually be a good way to strengthen relations with these countries and they saw the Supergrid as a decisive step towards a shift to renewables in Europe and the achievement of more ambitious CO2 reductions than the targets recently approved under the EU Climate and Energy Package.
For the full pdf report on the hearing, click here.
|
