Hydropower

A new EU energy initiative which will provide access to sustainable energy for an additional 500 million people in developing countries by 2030 was today announced by European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso.

In order to enable a higher penetration of wind and other variable renewables in the electricity system, the flexibility of the latter must be increased. Electricity storage is one of the main avenues to achieve system flexibility, others being improved interconnections, flexible conventional generation plant and demand-side management.

Earlier this month Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn announced Horizon 2020, an EUR 80 billion programme to help achieve Europe's 2020 targets, which includes a package of measures to boost research, innovation and competitiveness in Europe.

The Warsaw conference on the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) began on 28th November - the same day as the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, at which representatives of the world’s largest economies are discussing the future of limiting the world emission of carbon dioxide.

Last month the European Commission published its ‘Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe’. The Roadmap contains a series of medium- (2020) and long-term (2050) resource efficiency objectives as well as the means needed for achieving them, including targets by 2013 and milestones for 2020.

What is SETIS? How does SETIS support the SET-Plan? Download the new informational brochure (available in English, Dutch and Italian), which looks at how SETIS provides information for decision-making by monitoring progress of the SET-Plan.

On 1st July 2011, the Commission launched a new European Energy Efficiency Fund (EEE-F) as part of the European Energy Programme for Recovery (EEPR).

The Clean Energy Solutions Center is an American (Washington D.C.)-based initiative of the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM). The Center was launched in 2010 to assist partners and partner countries with designing and implementing clean energy policies and deployment programmes.

In a communiqué issued on 18th March 2011, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) calls on the European Union to consider the security of its energy supply as one of the priorities of its external policy. The recommendation is one of the results of an Opinion on energy supply and neighbourhood policy commissioned by the current Hungarian EU presidency.

The European Commission presented on 31 January 2011 its communication "Renewable Energy: Progressing towards the 2020 target". The communication shows that the 2020 renewable energy policy goals are likely to be met - and exceeded - if Member States fully implement their national renewable energy action plans and if financing instruments are improved.

According to EC Commissioner for Energy, Günther Oettinger, the European Council’s first Summit on energy in Brussels on 4th February 2011 was “a breakthrough for European energy policy.” The Summit, he added, would be “a benchmark for the years to come.”

The Belgian presidency and the European Commission organised the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan Conference 2010. More than 500 stakeholders from industry and research institutes and European and national policymakers from across Europe gathered in Brussels for the fourth edition of the SET-Plan conference. The main objectives were the launch of the next two European Industrial Initiatives: Bioenergy and Sustainable Nuclear Energy, and the kick-off of the international cooperation dimension within the SET-Plan.

In June 2010 Henrik Bindslev, Director of the Danish National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy (Risø DTU), was named chairman of the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), replacing Ton Hoff (ECN). Here, Mr Bindlev outlines how he sees the development of the EERA and how alternative energy technologies are emerging faster than anticipated.

Ministers from the UK, France and Germany have issued a joint call for the EU to raise its emission reduction target to 30% by 2020.

On 26 May the European Commission presented an analysis of the costs, benefits and options for moving beyond the EU's greenhouse gas reduction target for 2020 from 20 percent below 1990 levels to 30 percent once the conditions are met.

In response to the increasing need for energy innovation in Europe and beyond, the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) is launching its new Joint Research Programmes to help strengthen, expand and optimise EU energy research. The first Joint Programmes of research on Wind, Photovoltaic, Smart Grids and Geothermal were officially launched during the SET-Plan conference, on 3-4 June 2010 in Madrid.

This 16-page brochure provides a concise overview of the SET-Plan, the European Industrial Initiatives (EIIs), the Steering Group, the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) and SETIS.

On 24 March 2010, the European Small Hydropower Association (ESHA) organised a seminar within the framework of the European Sustainable Energy Week to raise awareness of the challenges to the sector linked to the implementation of the Water Framework Directive. The seminar gathered actors from all over Europe, and from various sectors, such as the European Institutions, the small hydropower industry, NGOs and consultancies.