EU’s New Energy Plans Include Mandatory Solar Panels On New Buildings

The European Union has recently decided to rapidly end its reliance on Russian oil and gas by making it mandatory for all new buildings to have solar panels. A news report published last week quoted the European Commission as saying, “There is a double urgency to transform Europe’s energy system: ending the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, which are used as an economic and political weapon and cost European taxpayers nearly €100 billion per year, and tackling the climate crisis,”.

Russia’s invasion on Ukraine has left Europe and USA livid but with no option but to continue the supply of gas from Russia every day. They could do nothing but bark up the wrong trees, mocking a mockery of themselves. India strongly rebuffed their attempts to terminate the deal with Russia. Currently, 40% of the EU’s gas is imported from Russia at a cost of over USD$110 million a day.

To achieve this, the Commission’s REPowerEU plan and the “solar rooftop initiative” is introducing a phased-in legal obligation to install by 2029 solar panels on new buildings whether public or commercial or residential. The goal is to bring online over 320 GW of solar photovoltaic energy by 2025 (more than doubling from 2020) and almost 600 GW by 2030.

If successful, solar energy will become the largest electricity source in the EU by 2030, with more than half of the share coming from rooftops. “We can also lead by example,” said European Green Deal head Frans Timmermans.“ Let us show as a commission how quickly we can put solar panels on our buildings.

Aside from these targets, the EU hopes the plan will help reduce energy prices over time. The International Energy Agency confirmed that solar power schemes now offer the cheapest electricity in history and predicted that by 2050, solar power production will skyrocket and become the world’s primary source of electricity.