Spain and France, to exploit available capacity; and exploring opportunities to safely exploit indigenous production in areas such as the north Adriatic, the Sicily Channel, and the North Sea. Here too, policy makers and investors could balance cost, reliability, and emissions in making investment decisions, as well as addressing local concerns.
the control of large-scale electricity demand (for instance, to increase green-hydrogen production). The overall loading of the grid infrastructure could be reduced by incentives for flexible demand-side resources to shift loads when grids are most strained to periods of less strain. Flexible demand could help the European Union reduce the need for fossil-based energy generation to ensure energy reliability. 3. Enabling the development of flexible cross- national gas networks that can carry lower- emission fuels. Integrating natural gas and hydrogen into European gas networks can help accelerate decarbonization. The enhancement of interregional gas networks could increase energy reliability and enable a more orderly energy transition. Europe could both retrofit its gas infrastructure and build out new capacity to support green hydrogen. As the gas network transitions toward cleaner fuels, policy makers and investors could consider actions that balance reliability and emissions in making investment decisions. For example, could regulatory cost standards for the blended- hydrogen and natural-gas infrastructure be created? Policy makers could also revise the regulations dictating the types of fuels that transmission system operations and distribution network operations may carry. 4. Raising LNG regasification capacity to support midterm energy security and help alleviate the current energy crisis. To bolster and diversify domestic natural-gas supply, EU nations could consider coordinated actions, including further work to develop new LNG regasification capacity. Temporary floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) are already being deployed to increase the European Union’s LNG import capacity. Other steps could include building new terminals in Wilhelmshaven, Germany; expanding cross-EU networks, such as the MidCat interconnection between
Action area 3: Reexamining land use, societal, permitting, and regulatory constraints
To reach its 2030 climate targets, the European Union would need to shift rapidly to renewable energy. Our research indicates that from 2022 to 2030, the annual number of solar and wind installations would need to increase by two to five times their 2020–22 levels to meet the region’s goals. Indeed, REPowerEU targets include a total solar capacity of 600 GW by 2030, up from 209 GW in 2022. 19 Annual additions of PV technology would need to more than double, from 30 GW a year (2020 to 2022) to around 70 GW a year (2022 to 2030). Annual additional onshore wind generation would need to almost quadruple, to 40 GW, from 11 GW, over the same period. Additional offshore wind generation would need to quintuple. What’s more, 60 percent of the region’s coal capacity might need to be retired. One critical condition of accelerating the use of renewables is the availability of land. Europe’s population density and growing concerns about land use have made it more challenging to find adequate areas for onshore wind and solar power. The land requirements for deploying the target capacity of renewables are significant. The 2040 RES targets in France, Germany, and Italy, for example, would require an additional land area of 23,000 to 35,000 km 2 —equivalent to the size of Belgium (Exhibit 4). 20
19 REPowerEU: A plan to rapidly reduce dependence on Russian fossil fuels and fast forward the green transition . 20 Stathia Bampinioti, Nadia Christakou, Bastian Paulitz, Lukas Pöhler, Antoine Stevens, Raffael Winter, and Ekaterina Zatsepina, Land: A crucial resource for the energy transition , McKinsey, May 16, 2023.
Accelerating the journey to net zero
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