15 GW Renewable In Two years In The EU to Recover From Pandemic

The European Commission or EU, is planning a massive 15GW push for renewable energy tenders in the next 2 years to pull the union out of the recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The EU has suffered the highest mortality counts as of now, and countries across the continent have struggled to manage wide, extended lockdowns with increasing frustration.

The news of the green stimulus was leaked in a set of documents, first published by Euractiv, an EU focused media network with a presence in 12 European capitals.

Upto €25bn will be set aside for the auctions that will make compensate for the reduction in tendering that the disruptions from Coronavirus have caused.

The tenders, to be possibly divided equally at 7.5 GW per year for the next two years  will be backed by the European Investment Bank and other EU guarantees.

“If a member state intends to tender a certain amount of capacity in the next two years the EU could match the national tender one on one,” added the leaked document.

The documents also refer to a plan to back a scaling up of hydrogen as well as launch a €10bn per year green infrastructure fund.

Interestingly, the draft does not mention  solar manufacturing in the plans for a renewably-powered recovery. Instead, the leak links the fate of green energy with another industrial ecosystem – the clean hydrogen sector.

The document states that the EU will tap into the Clean Hydrogen Partnership, the Innovation Fund, contracts-for-difference support and various other instruments to take EU-wide production past the one-million-tonne mark every year. “Without sustained growth of the renewables market, there is no future for clean hydrogen in Europe,” the draft said.

According to the leak, the connection between renewables and clean hydrogen would be further underscored via a so-called Green Infrastructure Fund. Managed by the EIB, the ten-billion-euro-a-year Fund would sponsor areas including electricity grid upgrades, the digitisation of power distribution networks and hydrogen infrastructure.

The latter would invest in areas such as transmission interconnectors, smart distribution networks and storage.

Talk of a green recovery package has been dominating the EU, where measures to fight climate change with direct funding, as well as for renewable energy, enjoy much wider popular support than in the US or even Asia for now.

A strong sustainability and green focused stimulus in the EU is widely expected to support the sector, as well as show the way to other countries who are falling back on emissions spewing industry to get a quick rebound on their growth numbers. India has been a culprit too, with its concessions on coal policy, as well as a seeming hurry for loosening of environmental norms, that could all have massive long term negative effects.