As Europe is making material progress on decarbonisation, a new landscape is emerging. Since 2012, low-carbon technologies have represented more than half of the total electricity production in Europe and Member States are well on track to meet their 2020 RES targets. This fast-developing energy transition is bringing about new issues for our sector: the power system needs to adapt to the growing share of variable electricity production and ensure that continued investment in low-carbon generation is taking place.
In the recent years, the large penetration of variable generation lowered wholesale prices thereby undermining the price signal and prospects for investment in generation capacity. As most RES technologies are becoming competitive and are gradually facing the same investment challenges as other technologies, how will policymakers pave the way for a secure and sustainable power supply?
These questions are among the first ones that the new Commission and Parliament will have to face in their mandate. EURELECTRIC believes that the Energy Union can be a renewed opportunity to tackle these issues and pave the way for a Europeanisation of energy policies.
In this conference, EURELECTRIC presented the main trends within the power sector, explain recent achievements but also challenges with respect to investment and investigate how the ‘energy union’ could stimulate greater coordination between Member States in their national policies.