Gas Industry Makes Plea to EU Ministers
At the EU energy ministerial meeting (council) on June 11, Bulgarian energy minister Temenuzhka Petkova will brief EU energy ministers on progress made in negotiations on the three planks of the proposed EU Clean Energy Package.
These are: the regulation on governance of the Energy Union; the directive on renewable energy; and the directive on energy efficiency. All three initiatives are still being negotiated by the council and the European Parliament. The June 11 meeting will be the last EU energy council chaired by Petkova, under the current six-month Bulgarian presidency of the EU Council which ends June 30.
Regarding the proposed EU Clean Energy Package, the gas industry lobby group GasNaturally on June 8 published a letter from Marco Alvera, its president who is also Snam CEO, to Petkova (as chairwoman of the June 11 council) on how it believes "gas can help the EU reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, while ensuring energy security, flexibility and affordability."
Alvera lists eight ways in which gas can help, foremost in substitution of coal in power generation, but also as a back-up for variable renewables with gas-fired generation; the use of LNG as a truck and ship fuel; and carbon capture and storage in connection with various uses of gas.
Regarding the draft renewable energy directive, Gas Naturally says that Europe’s 2050 decarbonisation objectives can be reached more affordably by integrating renewable gas alongside renewable electricity. It calls for more specificity in the draft text on how renewable gases, such as biomethane, as well as hydrogen and synthetic gas produced with surplus renewable electricity, would help achieve this.
On the energy efficiency, GasNaturally says the switch to gas from higher-carbon fuels not only reduces carbon dioxide emissions cost-effectively, but also provides gains in energy efficiency.
On overall targets, the lobby group says member states should retain full flexibility in achieving the targets, in order to ensure maximum and most cost-effective progress. It says the chosen targets should not influence the development of the carbon price under the ETS Directive, which will continue to be a powerful and cost-effective tool to reduce GHG emissions and to achieve compliance with the Paris Agreement. The ETS is growing even more in significance since 2014 GHG emissions in the EU only declined in 2016 (by 0.4% compared with 2015), and increased again in 2017 (by 0.3% year on year).
"Phasing out higher carbon fuels is very important. The UK has drastically reduced its carbon dioxide emissions in power generation thanks to phasing out coal and increasing the use of natural gas and renewables," writes Alvera.
The EU council June 11 will also hear from the European Commission, which will inform ministers on recent developments in the field of external energy relations and hear from the upcoming Austrian presidency which takes over the chairing of EU councils for six months starting July 1.