ETD Revision

In view of the meeting of the WP on Tax Questions on 10 November, the Czech Presidency published a compromise text covering the Energy Taxation Directive. The document specifies that Member States will be able to grant tax exemptions or reductions to nuclear electricity (in addition to wind, solar, etc.). It shows that there are still questions about how to tax hydrogen used in fuel cells – several options are being considered. The levels of taxation are left in square brackets at this stage, since the Presidency believes that they should be decided at the ministerial level. For more information, please contact Ennio Prizzi.

European Bioenergy Day

On 8 November, we celebrated the European Bioenergy Day, as part of the campaign. Besides providing information about bioenergy, the campaign highlights success stories of the Member States and celebrates national bioenergy days, which indicate the day on which the country could rely on bioenergy only for the rest of 2022, if bioenergy were used continuously. If you want to know more about the campaign and/or are interested in contributing to the national success stories, please contact Maija Lepistö.

New Emergency Energy Council in November

A new emergency meeting of the Energy Council is expected in November, with the aim of adopting a legislative proposal on capping gas prices. The European Commission would present an urgent legislative package that will be first discussed at the EU summit on 20-21 October, then at the Energy Council on 25 October. For more information, please contact Ennio Prizzi.

EU ETS Revision

On 10 October, the second trilogue on the EU ETS took place. Three major crises have been addressed: mitigating energy prices, stopping the financing of Russian aggression in Ukraine and maintaining the climate ambition for 2030. An agreement was reached on the steel benchmark and indirect cost compensation. For more information, please contact Ennio Prizzi.

EU Bioeconomy Conference

The Commission hosted the 2022 Bioeconomy Conference, both live in Brussels and online. During the 2-day event, there were robust discussions on how biomass can be used, promoted, can replace fossil fuels, and on the existing limits and challenges to expanding the bioeconomy. Most of the sessions are also available online through Vimeo. For more information, please contact Daniel Reinemann.

EC Emergency Intervention to Address High Energy Prices

The European Commission published a Proposal for a Council Regulation on an emergency intervention to address high energy price. The proposal includes the application a revenue cap that, in the intention of the Commission, seeks to avoid “hampering incentives in investments in flexible generation technologies, and the production of electricity from sources that directly compete with natural gas and gas-fired power plants”. The Secretariat drafted a position paper  which calls to consider the special role of bioenergy plants when introducing a mechanism for skimming off additional revenues. For more information, please contact Ennio Prizzi.

ITRE Committee Meeting

The Industry Research, and Energy Committee met on Monday (26 September) to discuss the REPowerEU and REDIV. The rapporteur for both REDIV and REDIII, Markus Pieper (EPP, DE) expressed an interest in having them being negotiated in the same trilogue so there is a possibility that the two Commission proposals will be merged in practice. Nils Torvalds (RE, FI) also again the rapporteur in the ENVI committee for REDIV as he was for REDIII, also spoke saying that although it is important that Europe makes sure it reaches its targets, it must also make sure it safeguards sustainability. For more information, please contact Daniel Reinemann.  

WG Domestic Heating

During last week’s meeting of the Working Group Domestic Heating, participants shared their views on current and future development of the pellet market including market prices. Further, the current state of play of some key files for the DH sector (including RED, EED, EPBD and the EU energy labelling and ecodesign legislation) were presented and discussed. Slides and minutes are available. For more information, please contact Irene di Padua.