Strategic Choices for Sustainability at EU Regional Level - The Sustainability of Renewable Energy in Europe - page 85

Chapter 4
Strategic Choices for Sustainability
at EU Regional Level

Today, the supply of electricity still comes mainly from large power plants fueled
primarily by fossil fuels that operate through established distribution and trans-
mission systems. Although these systems provide an efficient service worldwide
for many years, times are changing. Modern societies have understood that in
order to mitigate climate change, it is needed to reduce polluting emissions. The
optimum use of traditional sources must be accompanied by an ever-increasing
use of renewable energy sources (RES). There is therefore the spread of a wide
range of energy sources that involve a number of complexities in terms of im-
provements in RES' technologies and design of electrical networks. The EU has
launched several initiatives to increase the use of RES in all EU countries. With
the climate and energy package, energy policy becomes a unilateral commit-
ment in Europe. The achievement of macro-objectives outlined in the package
is entrusted to the synergistic effects of different proposals closely linked. With
regard to the RES Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy
from RES, it sets the overall policy framework in order to ensure coverage of
20 % of the energy demand of the EU through RES to the electricity, transport
(biofuels), and heating-cooling sectors (European Commission 2009a ). The ob-
jectives of mandatory coverage with RES are implemented at the national level
and they vary from one country to another; they are between 10 and 49 % of final
consumption by 2020.
Therefore, in this chapter we offer an updated and comprehensive review in
which each EU country stands in relation to 2020 RES' objectives. The EU has a
huge potential to develop a new generation of energy technologies like offshore
wind, solar energy, or technologies for the exploitation of biomass, and research
and development activities go ahead to get to possible RES technological break-
throughs. The EU is currently making a number of changes to the organization
of the energy market, including rethinking the management of electrical energy.
The influence of climatic conditions on the availability of solar and wind energy,
together with the need to develop distributed systems, imposes the need of lo-
cal networks capable of receiving and delivering electrical energy. Not having
been designed to meet the needs of RES, grids need to be revised; a global and