Belgium, (Brussels Morning Newspaper) The European Commission stressed the importance of increasing the production of renewable energy to make up for the lower use of fossil fuels.
In a statement released on Monday, the EC pointed out that the EU is phasing out fossil fuels as part of the green push, stressing that the move needs to be accompanied by comparable growth of green alternatives.
Adina Vălean, European Commissioner for Transport, noted “we need sufficient supplies of renewable electricity, sustainable biofuels, clean hydrogen, and other renewable and low-carbon fuels… the keyword in this sentence is ‘sufficient.'”
She pointed out that phasing out internal combustion engines drives up demand for energy-intensive expansion of charging infrastructure and production of electricity from renewable sources.
The push for green hydrogen requires more renewable electricity still, she added, and stressed the importance of deploying more renewables.
“We will still need more electricity production and better distribution… our data show that electricity demand for electric vehicles will increase total electricity consumption in the EU by at least 2% by 2030,” Vălean noted.
EC willing to pay the price
She reminded me that the green push is costly as the EC estimates investments in green road transport alone will cost approximately 130 billion euros each year up to 2030.
Vălean concluded that the Commission allocated roughly 200 billion euros for this purpose for the period between 2021 and 2027.
European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson commented on the EU’s energy crisis, stating “in this short space of time, the change we have witnessed in Europe’s energy system has been remarkable.”
She pointed out that the EU more than halved Russian natural gas imports in 12 months and replaced them with more expensive and equally polluting liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports, which nearly doubled in the observed period.
At the same time, the bloc’s industries and citizens tightened their belts and cut gas consumption by about 19%, with gas price hikes spilling over to other sectors of the economy.
“By many standards now Europe is more energy secure, less dependent from Russia and stronger than it was one year ago,” Simson stated and concluded, “our policies worked, our unity has been preserved, but the test is not over… we have just won the first battle and there is still a long fight ahead of us.”
