At the end of March, the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council reached an agreement on the comprehensive revision of the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED III). It significantly raises the European target for renewable energies from 32% to 42.5% in 2030.
The directive sets binding renewable energy targets for the individual sectors. In addition, the amendments to the RED will also significantly and permanently speed up approval procedures at European level. The member states must cover 42.5% of their total gross final energy consumption with renewables. There is also an additional target at EU level of a further 2.5%. Sector targets ensure that the switch to renewable energies also begins in the heating and cooling sector (including district heating) as well as in the buildings, industry and transport sectors. The target for the heating sector is now binding and will initially be set at 0.8%, followed by a 1.1% increase per year from 2026. The indicative target for increasing the share of renewable energy in district heating will be more than doubled from 1% to 2.2%. In addition, there is a new indicative target for buildings, which envisages a 49% share of renewable energy in the heating requirements of buildings. Each member state must tackle at least one cross-border cooperation project (e.g. joint offshore wind farms).
The EU member states must cover 42.5% of their total gross final energy consumption with renewables
For industry, the following will apply in future: 42% of the hydrogen consumed in 2030 must come from electricity-based, renewable fuels; by 2035, this figure should be 60%. There is also a new indicative target to increase the share of renewable energy in industry by 1.6% per year. In the transport sector, the already binding target has been raised from 14% to 29%.
Some of the regulations to accelerate the expansion of renewables, which were adopted in the EU emergency regulation (we reported on this in issue 3/23), are no longer only temporary but permanent. These include, for example, the determination that the expansion of renewables and the grids is in the "overriding public interest". In certain areas, the time-consuming second environmental and species protection assessment can be omitted if an environmental assessment has already been carried out at the planning level. However, this only applies if appropriate avoidance or compensatory measures have been taken, i.e. the level of nature conservation remains high. There was also debate until the end as to whether hydrogen from nuclear power could be counted as a contribution to the EU targets. The agreement now states that electricity from nuclear energy is not to be equated with electricity from renewable energies. For example, a clear distinction is still made between green hydrogen and so-called low-carbon hydrogen.
Member states that meet their national target contribution to the EU 2030 target and whose industry uses almost exclusively decarbonized fuels will receive a discount on the hydrogen sub-target in industry and thus more flexibility. The agreement on the revision of the EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) must now be confirmed by the Council and the European Parliament.
