The REpowerEU is the European action plan for energy. In fact, the recent Russian military aggression against Ukraine and the consequent tensions with the Russian government have highlighted the deep European dependence on Russian gas supplies.
This has caused a real energy crisis that has been thrown over Europe.
In fact, the old continent depends on Russian gas supplies for 45.3% (*source: European Commission), while Italy depended on it for 38%, which fell to 26% after the agreement with Algeria (*source: Italian Ministry of Ecological Transition ).
The REpowerEU plan of the European Commission aims to completely remove the EU from dependence on Russian gas and oil supplies by 2027 through a series of legislative and financial measures in order to create a new European energy system.
REpowerEU main goals
The main goals on which to act towards the independence from Russian fossil energy supplies by 2027 are based on 3 pillars:
- Diversify energy sources: diversification of reliable partners to supply fossil fuels in the short term.
- Save energy: domestic and working habits changing of citizens in order to reduce the total consumption.
- Accelerate clean energy transition: green energy, in addition to being clean and cheap, considerably reduces the demand of supplies from external partners. REpowerEU‘s goal is to allocate large funds to encourage and speed up the transition to the implementation of green energy mainly from photovoltaics.
In the short term these planned actions aim to a complete renewing and restructuring of the European energy system. This to cope with the current energy crisis, while in the long term these actions will lead Europe to a climate neutrality by 2050.
EU towards clean energy
In order to speed up Europe’s steer towards clean energy production, the RepowerEU plan look at an increase in production by 2025 to 320 GW to reach 600 GW in 2030.
The EU’s far-sighted goal to increasing photovoltaic energy production will bring to achieve savings in natural gas consumption of approximately 9 billion cbm by 2027.
The advantage of the EU’s massive commitment will lead to a significant reduction in energy costs and afterwards will directly affect Russian imports.
REpowerEU: joint actions
The EU Energy Platform was established last 7th April 2022. Its purpose is to guarantee energy supplies at competitive prices given the instability of the current geopolitical situation caused by the Russian invasion. In this way, the EU will act as unique partner in the negotiation of energy supplies, as single countries would have less power and strenght in mediation. The EU Energy Platform splits on various regional task forces, whose work will follow 3 pillars:
- Identify specific needs for the given area;
- Opportunities to increase / improve energy infrastructures;
- Gas supplier options.
Conclusion
The urge to find an immediate energy solution is due to two huge reasons: the climate crisis and the energy supply undermined by the Russian aggression of Ukraine, which highlighted the strong dependence of the EU on Russian fossil fuels. And actually it is used by Russia to exploits as an economic and military leverage.
The change undertaken by the EU to increase the production of renewable and sustainable energy will lead Europe to strengthen and increase its economic growth as well as strengthening its industrial leadership until reaching climate neutrality by 2050.
