Co-legislators pave the way for more renewables in EU buildings
July 2022
Brussels, Belgium
The first anniversary of the European Commission’s publication of the revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED) is marked by two important milestones: the Council’s General Approach and the adopted European Parliament’s ITRE Committee Report. UIPI supports the current adopted positions as a key player in the building sector, for which this Directive lays down provisions to boost the installation of renewable energy sources.
The month of July 2022 saw a significant progress in the legislative work by the co-legislators, also led by the urgency to mitigate the negative impact of the Ukranian war and its subsequent EU energy crisis. Faster and efficient deployment of renewable energy is certainly a priority. We therefore welcome the overall level of ambition of the co-legislators.
While renewable energy produced on-site constitutes an important option for businesses and households to reduce their carbon footprint and should be widely promoted, setting too narrow standards at building level without a full consideration of the available well-functioning energy system and local solutions, risk making the green transition more expensive. In UIPI’s view, proposing an ambitious indicative EU renewable energy share target in the building sector (at least 49%) is the right approach, as long as we continue to take into account technical, functional and economic feasibility considerations.
Emmanuelle Causse, UIPI Secretary General, stated: “Both texts from the co-legislators guarantee that the much-needed high level of ambition for the deployment of renewables is met when and where appropriate by reintroducing caveats and conditions for the deployment of minimum levels of energy from renewable source at building level. Our role now is to make sure that the right framework, support mechanisms and tools to boost the use of renewables in buildings are there to help building owners in Europe to make the switch!”
Before the interinstitutional negotiations can begin, the so-called “trilogues”, the European Parliament’s position needs to be confirmed within the entire plenary through a vote scheduled for September.
