REPowerEU is the plan presented by the European Commission with the aim of reducing the EU’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels and gas demand by 15% in all EU member states in the coming months.The plan was presented on 18 May 2022 and completed on 20 July and shared by an Assotermica position paper in September. The plan also aims to diversify the energy supply, save energy and produce cleaner, in order to also accelerate the ongoing energy transition process.
Indeed, the decarbonization process began long before the current crisis, in particular after the United Nations Climate Conference COP21, in November 2015, and the Paris Agreement, in which all Member States committed themselves to reducing its CO2 emissions, in order to contain climate change within acceptable levels, as regulated by international and European directives.
The key points of REPowerEU
In particular, the new geopolitical reality requires us to drastically accelerate the transition to clean energy and to increase Europe’s energy independence in the energy market. In fact, 85% of Europeans believe that the EU should reduce its dependence on Russian gas and oil as soon as possible and only by acting as a Union can Europe achieve this goal more quickly.
The REPowerEU plan sets out a number of key points to rapidly reduce dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate the green transition:
- save energy
- diversify supply
- accelerate the transition to clean energy
How will the EU be able to diversify its gas supply and buy common energy?
As far as energy saving is concerned, we are all called upon to do our part, also thanks to the support of various initiatives and the implementation of specific regulations.
Supply, on the other hand, involves concertation at an international level, in which the European Union is collaborating with international partners to find alternative energy supplies. In the short term, unfortunately, we will still need gas, oil and coal, as the transition is still underway. In addition to agreements with more reliable suppliers, the establishment of an EU Energy Platform Task Force to pool demand, coordinate the use of import, storage and transmission infrastructure and negotiate with international partners to facilitate purchases common gas and hydrogen.
Currently, in fact, the European Union cannot purchase energy directly from third party partners, but can coordinate the actions of the member states, thus strengthening the collective bargaining position on the world energy markets.
REPowerEU: what investments are needed?
For the REPowerEU plan it will be necessary to invest over 210 billion euros over the next 5 years. The resources will be drawn in part from the Recovery and Resilience Facility which will make available 225 billion euros in the form of loans and 20 billion in the form of grants. Member States will also be able to add the REPowerEU item to their recovery and resilience plans (PNRR), to steer investments locally, in addition to the ecological transition policies already in place for some years.
Assotermica’s position on REPowerEU
Assotermica, the Italian association of which IMIT is a part, accepted the challenge of decarbonization, well before the current crisis, and reiterates that this Plan also needs to be supported with measures that do not penalize the sector represented. Through a recent position paper, he expressed his opinion on some fundamental and priority issues for the correct implementation of the Plan.
From their press release, the topics of greatest interest to the Association are the following:
- centrality of the building sector in the energy transition process
- overcome the current barriers to the electrification of consumption
- exploit all available options for decarbonisation
- correctly implement the “energy efficiency first” principle and all renewables
To learn more, we invite you to read the full document on REPowerEU at this link (Italian version).
IMIT, as a member of Assotermica, is committed day by day to promoting new technologies of climate comfort, through a series of products dedicated to renewable energy, to safeguard our planet. To find out more, browse our website, download our catalog below or preview the instruction manuals of our products for home and office comfort. For further requests, send an email to info@imit.it. Our staff will reply as soon as possible.