Dear Vice-President Šefčovič, Commissioners Arias Cañete and Vestager
The Energy Market Design Initiative is crucial to making or breaking the success of an Energy Union with a forward looking climate policy. It can deliver on multiple EU objectives; a greater focus on consumers and innovation; putting energy efficiency first; becoming a world leader in renewables; and implementing the Paris Agreement.
If we get market design right, Europe as a whole stands to benefit:
- Energy poverty can be cut if markets are leveraged to enable and incentivise citizensnto save energy, meaning a better deal for families;
- Energy security and resilience can be boosted if a single energy market effectively aligns national activity with EU policy across the continent;
- The lock-in of fossil fuel power generation can be avoided if the role of capacity mechanisms and other direct and indirect support for fossil fuels is minimised;
- Jobs, growth and essential emissions reductions can come to Europe if the deployment of clean renewable technologies such as wind and solar is facilitated;
- Europe’s innovative digital industries can get the information and business case they need to deliver the energy systems of the future if energy markets transparentlyreflect the full cost of delivering both energy and reliability in real-time.
- Europe needs faster, more competitive and better connected energy markets to fully integrate the new energy technologies that are needed to drive decarbonisation. A well signalled and transparent evolution of EU energy markets is required.
Starting with the 2030 package, the EU needs markets that deliver affordable, sustainable, and secure energy by:
- Realizing the potential of cost-effective energy efficiency and demand response as alternatives to generation through unhindered market access for consumers, enhanced access to information, and appropriate remuneration so that people andbusiness reap the benefits of consuming less energy and/or consuming energy more flexibly;
- Introducing a sustained programme of smart retirement of surplus resources that starts with the dirtiest and least flexible power sources and leads to no coal in the EU by 2030. This is required both to decarbonise the power system and to tackle the problem of excess generation capacity;
- Regulating and incentivising distribution system operators to act as neutral market facilitators of a more decentralised energy system that, in conjunction with the transparent setting of taxes, fees and network tariffs, strengthens the role of citizensin the production of renewable energy;
- Balancing of supply and demand across Member States through effective interconnections, regional markets (including completing the coupling of balancingmarkets) and independent, regional system adequacy assessments.
We urge you and your fellow Commissioners to seize the opportunity to deliver an ambitious reform of EU energy markets and put the EU on a course to a brighter, cleaner future.
Yours sincerely,
CECED European committee of domestic equipment manufacturers
Paolo Falcioni, Director-General
Client Earth
Karla Hill, Director of Programmes
Co-operative Energy
Ramsay Dunning, Managing Director
E3G Third Generation Environmentalism
Nick Mabey, Chief Executive
Energy4All
Annette Heslop, Company Secretary/Director
Energy Cities
Claire Roumet, Executive Director
European Alliance to Save Energy
Monica Frassoni, President
ECOS – European Environmental Citizens Organisation for Standardisation
Laura Degallaix, Director
European Heat Pump Association
Thomas Nowak, Director
ODE Decentraal
Siward Zomer, Director
REScoop.eu – European federation of groups and cooperatives of citizens for renewable
energy
Dirk Vansintjan, President
Som Energia Renewable Energy Cooperative
Gijsbert Huijink, Manager
Tipperary Energy Agency
Paul Kenny, Chief Executive Officer
World Future Council
Stefan Schurig, Member of the Executive Board, Director Climate Energy
WWF European Policy Office
Genevieve Pons, Director