Category: Knowledge Center Europe

Floating PV Best Practice Guidelines: SolarPower Europe Report

The report aims to catalogue best practices and expertise. This publication serves as a handbook to drive high-quality floating PV projects, by creating and strengthening floating PV knowledge sharing. Within this report, over 30 experts from SolarPower Europe’s Land Use and Permitting Workstream have illustrated their knowledge of floating PV best practices through technical guidance and real-world examples. 

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Energy Systems in Transition in EU and US: Report

The key findings of this report indicate that Installations of wind and solar capacity are gathering speed in the EU and US. A record breaking 33 GW of solar PV will be built in the US in 2024. New wind projects in the EU are also breaking records, growing by about 18% in 2022. Renewables generate more electricity than either coal or nuclear power in both the US and EU. Wind and solar generated enough electricity in 2022 to power about 85% of all households in the EU.

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EU Climate and Energy Policy: Briefing

The energy crunch made it clear that, as long as electricity generation at times of high demand largely depends on gas power plants, power prices will spike when gas prices do. This has prompted the EU to launch a reform of its power market design, now reaching its final stages. It aims to standardise national policies to support investment in renewables across the continent, to ultimately reduce dependence on fossil-fuelled power generation.

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Ireland’s National Energy Projections: Report

The data produced through this exercise is a key input to the EPA’s annual Greenhouse Gas Emissions Projections. The projections presented in this report are the result of the 2023 national energy and climate modelling cycle, which culminated in the EPA projections published in June 2023. A new modelling cycle for 2024 began in September 2023 and will produce a new set of projections in early 2024.

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Malta Offshore Renewable Energy Policy: Paper

With the introduction of this offshore renewable energy policy, the Maltese government is setting the foundation to venture into a new arena of renewable energy. This initiative will complement the success of onshore photovoltaic rooftop and solar farms, contributing further to the ‘green’ energy transition in line with the EU legislative packages of the European Green Deal, Fit-for-55 initiatives and the REPowerEU plans.

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UK Hydrogen Strategy Update: Report

The announcements in the Powering Up Britain plan in March 2023 show that the transformation of the UK energy system is well underway. These announcements will help to ensure the provision of cheap, clean and secure British energy, with delivery of a hydrogen economy a crucial area of action. The government committed in the UK Hydrogen Strategy (2021) to provide regular updates on policy development, to keep industry informed of the progress.

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CEER Report on Electric Vehicles

The report concludes that energy regulators have an important role to play in integrating electric mobility into the energy system. Whether in the application of their existing powers, in the formal evolution of their competencies under national legal frameworks, or in their ability to collaborate with relevant stakeholders, such as grid operators and energy suppliers, regulators have a range of options at their disposal to meet the challenges addressed in this report.

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Norway’s Energy Policy Review: IEA Report

Norway has many natural advantages to facilitate a successful energy and climate transition. In particular, it can be well-positioned to lead the world on new technologies for decarbonising hard-to-abate sectors, such as electric vehicles, carbon capture and storage, and hydrogen, if the right policies and incentives are put in place. In this report, the IEA provides energy policy recommendations to help Norway effectively manage the transformation of its energy sector in line with its goals.

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German Green Hydrogen Action Plan: Whitepaper

A recent White Paper found that industrial demand centres in Germany and the EU are ready to offtake five million tonnes of green hydrogen per year at present, with an addressable market of up to 27 million tonnes annually in the long term. In May (2022), the European Commission unveiled its REPowerEU plan which had ambitions of producing 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen annually, while importing a further 10 million tonnes.

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Top Problems for Renewables in Europe: Briefing

While the draft REPowerEU strategy identifies environmental regulation as the main obstacle to the uptake and upscale of renewables in Europe, the real bottlenecks proved to lie elsewhere. European Environmental Bureau analyses in this policy briefing what are the real top 10 barriers to renewable energy, which are related to lack of skilled professionals, grid connections and resource allocation.

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BEV Access in Europe: Paper by ICCT

The analysis found that new BEV registrations is not equally distributed across European regions. In intermediate regions, the average BEV market share of 6.7% was 0.5 percentage points higher than in urban and rural regions. Looking at the regions which experienced BEV registrations equal to or above the European average, their share was the highest in intermediate regions (45%), followed by rural regions (42%), and urban regions (38%).

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UK Green Trade Briefing

The UK continues to prioritise Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) as its primary trade strategy. To avoid undermining its international climate strategy, and losing public support for its trade strategy, the UK’s approach to trade deals needs to be better aligned with its climate objectives. To achieve this, the UK should pioneer climate cooperation agreements inside and alongside its trade deals.

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EU Action On Energy Crisis: Report

In this report, CREA and Ember analyse European national responses to the gas crisis and Russia’s war on Ukraine. They show that the majority of European countries have significantly stepped up their ambition in terms of renewable energy deployment since 2019,
while decreasing planned 2030 fossil fuel generation to shield themselves from geopolitical threats.

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E3G Briefing: UK’s Home Energy Security Strategy

Ofgem has predicted that the energy price cap will hit £2,800 in October. The UK government has provided £37bn this year just to keep people afloat. Investing now in long-term, enduring solutions can prevent similar sums from being required up to 2030 and potentially beyond. The government could act now to reliably lower bills by launching a national mission to upgrade the UK’s cold and leaky homes.

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Metals for Europe’s Clean Energy Transition: Report

In the wake of supply disruptions from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s lack of resilience for its growing metals needs has become a strategic concern. This study evaluates how Europe can fulfil its goal of “achieving resource security” and “reducing strategic dependencies” for its energy transition metals, through a demand, supply, and sustainability assessment of the EU Green Deal and its resource needs.

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