Top 5 nicknames for the EU clean energy package

Written by Leonardo Meeus

With a US president that is likely to go backward in the energy transition, we can only applaud the European Commission proposals to move forward. For some the EU is going too fast, for others not fast enough, but fortunately we are still moving.

The proposals have many nicknames in Brussels, here is my top 5.

1. winter package referring to the release date: 30th of November 2017. Perhaps not the most original nickname, but it might well be the most popular.
2. jumbo package pointing to the thousands of pages. The package includes evaluations of the EU Directives and Regulations that needed to be renewed, impact assessments of the policy options that have been considered for the renewal, and a new set of EU Directives and Regulations to move the energy transition forward.
3. fourth package as this is indeed the fourth time that the European legislation guiding the liberalization of the electricity sector is significantly renewed.
4. 2030 package because the EU renewable energy and energy efficiency ambitions for 2020 have been updated for the 2030 horizon.
5. new deal for energy consumers, which is how the package was announced in the summer of 2015. Many observers agree that the package delivered on that promise, for instance, by legislating the right to self-consume your energy at EU level, and by taking several measures to create a level playing field between demand and supply side solutions to electricity system challenges.

My top 3 controversies in the EU clean energy package to discuss in January:

Of course, there are many controversies surrounding this package. In this topic of the month, we will discuss three of them:

1. TSO-DSO coordination
2. Electric vehicle charging infrastructure
3. Distributed electricity storage

Are they the most vital or most contentious topics? Not necessarily, but they are definitely relevant. We are focusing on these topics this month at FSR so we can give you the latest thinking from Florence on these controversies from Brussels.

Read the second article: My take on TSO-DSO Coordination debate