EUREC has released two reports in support of the European Parliament’s proposed amendment to the Renewable Energy Directive (“RED III”) calling for at least 5% of new renewable energy capacity to be of innovative renewable energy technology (Article 3). The report is EUREC’s latest effort to promote awareness of this important and timely idea. Through the measures that Member States will use to achieve it, it intends to speed up the commercialisation of new, high-quality, European-made renewable energy technology.

Our first report, “5% of new capacity from ‘Innovative’ Renewable Energy – A necessary and do-able enhancement to the Renewable Energy Directive”, defends the 5% innovative renewables target in RED III. It demonstrates that it is right to attend to innovative technology as part of intensifying push towards renewables, that the 5% innovation target well formulated and implementable with existing EU laws and by building on approaches already used in some Member States.

Our second report, “Deployment of innovative renewable energy technologies to 2030”, produced by consultancy 1-Tech from a series of interviews conducted with high-level experts and representatives of European renewable energy industry counts the gigawatts of innovative technology which could be feasibly deployed by 2030. Whether the Council or Ministers and European Parliament finally agree on 40% or 45% of renewables in final energy consumption by 2030, hundreds of gigawatts will have to be installed. 5% equates to tens of gigawatts, and companies are ready to deploy them if the conditions are right. The report covers what specific current technologies would fit the European Parliament’s definition of “innovative” and in how many GW they could be deployed in the next 3 years given appropriate measures from the Member States.

“In the past month, the European Commission has published ‘EU’s global leadership in renewables’, which identifies that Europe ‘holds an innovation leadership position in…renewable energy technologies’ and clearly stipulates that innovation is a ‘key asset’ for international competitiveness in renewable energy. Our innovation report is a timely study on how to capitalise on Europe’s position to ensure Europe’s long-term future in renewables,” said Greg Arrowsmith, EUREC Secretary General.

Please find the reports for download here:

• “5% of new capacity from ‘Innovative’ Renewable Energy – A necessary and do-able enhancement to the Renewable Energy Directive“, by EUREC supported by Cleantech for Europe, Climate Strategy, European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE), European Renewable Energies Federation, and Future Cleantech Architects.

• Deployment of innovative renewable energy technologies to 2030, by 1-Tech under contract to EUREC