In Europe there is talk of political and banking union. Someone would also like a fiscal one, while there are those who question the monetary one. But another priority is that of aEnergy union. To reach this goal, there are three main challenges that the European energy sector must face: the implementation of truly integrated European governance, the achievement of a "future-proof" market structure and the development of digital technologies.
These are the conclusions of the research “Creating the European Energy Union. Policy proposals and recommendations to energize Europe's competitiveness”, conducted by The European House – Ambrosetti (TEH-A) in collaboration with Enel and presented today in Cernobbio as part of the Forum "Today's and tomorrow's scenario for competitive strategies". “It is – explained the former EU commissioner Joaquin Almunia, research coordinator – to remove obstacles to a single energy market, and to establish guidelines. We must depend less on imports from other areas and focus on energy efficiency”.
Enel-Ambrosetti's proposals are essentially eight:
- Harmonizing European standards with a top-down logic and therefore with a solid European regulatory and institutional basis, giving more power to the Community bodies;
- Accelerate the integration of European energy markets, including through regional cooperation mechanisms;
- Streamline the process of completing European interconnectors based on cost-benefit analyses;
- Establish a market structure consistent with the EU's decarbonisation objectives, also through the adoption of long-term contracts;
- Define transparent and cost-effective criteria for the formation of retail prices;
- Promote new legislation for the digitization of the European energy system, placing the smart grid at the heart of this process;
- Facilitate access to finance for energy efficiency projects;
- Make Europe a global pioneer in the application, dissemination and export of innovative energy technologies.
“Enel strongly supports the evolution of European policy on energy and the environment – declared the CEO and General Manager of Enel Francesco Starace – and in particular the full integration of the Union's energy markets as an essential tool for achieving European objectives in an efficient and sustainable manner. The current challenges are to create a stable and uniform regulatory context capable of providing investors with certainties to design an integrated market with long-term signals and improve interconnections between states, developing smart grids in the best possible way and investing in the digitization of networks . In this the Italian experience is an example”.
The final objective must also be that of a lower cost of energy for the consumer. In short, benefits on the bill for Italian and European families: “Currently – explains Starace – there are a lot of extra costs on the bills for the final consumer, and often these also lack transparency. This does not depend on the companies but on the absence of a common market: the standardization of the energy system will bring tangible benefits for citizens, not only in Italy but also in all the other member countries”.
The study then underlines how the efforts made in the past by the European Commission and the Member States have led to a gradual reduction of the weight of production from conventional sources in favor of renewable and low CO emission sources2: from 1990 to today, greenhouse gas emissions have decreased by 18% while the share of energy from renewable sources has reached 15%. The EU is therefore on the right track to achieve the objectives it has set in terms of energy and climate, even if the same document highlighted some unresolved critical issues such as: the energy dependence, as underlined by Almunia, in particular from countries with high geopolitical risk; the functioning of the internal energy market, which does not allow adequate investment decisions to be made due to the lack of long-term price signals; retail prices which, not commensurate with costs, generate market distortions between Member States; the need to improve access to finance for energy efficiency initiatives; in the field of environmental protection, the lack of an adequate competitive framework for renewable sources and a clear European framework on incentives; finally, in terms of research and innovation, the need to fully exploit the potential for the development of key enabling technologies.
