Renewable Energy Coordination Group outlines how to solve the energy crisis with more renewables

The Energy Community Secretariat brought together representatives of ministries and institutions dealing with renewables in the Contracting Parties under the umbrella of the Renewable Energy Coordination Group. The group expressed support for the adoption of 2030 climate and energy targets at the December Ministerial Council meeting in Vienna and discussed short-term measures to boost the use of renewables in order to tackle the current energy crisis. The speeding-up of the permit-granting procedures for renewables projects, best practices on creating an enabling framework for corporate power purchase agreements and self-consumption schemes were in focus.

The meeting also acknowledged that guarantees of origin, which certify the production of energy from renewable sources, could be an important catalyst for boosting renewables investment by enabling corporate power purchase agreements and called for the national registries and regional system of guarantees of origin to go live as soon as possible.

In cooperation with IRENA, a back-to-back workshop on policies for the sustainable development of the bioenergy sector was held. The workshop aimed to support the Contracting Parties in transposing provisions on sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions saving criteria for biofuels, bioliquids and biomass fuels from the newly adopted Renewable Energy Directive (REDII). Given the lack of implementation of the sustainability criteria and cases of unsustainable use of biomass for heating, it is of outmost importance to implement all criteria in a coordinated manner to ensure security of biomass supply, reduce dependence on oil and achieve ambitious energy and climate targets.

The Renewable Energy Coordination Group works to accelerate renewables deployment in line with the Decarbonisation Roadmap that the Contracting Parties committed to at the 2021 Ministerial Council.