EREF - EREF - EUROPEAN RENEWABLE ENERGIES FEDERATION

Dear friends of distributed and decentralized renewable energies all over Europe.

A lot is discussed recently in Europe and its Member States on electricity grids, infrastructure packages and smartening of grids.

EREF, for some time, has observed that there is too little focus on the technical capacities and capabilities of modern distributed renewable energy technologies onshore, in and for all EU 27 Member States.

In order to start a focused exchange and joint learning on the real needs for the changing energy world in Europe, on the obstacles and the relationship between TSO, DSO, big and small renewable electricity installations, EREF organized a Workshop on these issues, entitled "Big and small – we need them all".

We believe that the EREF Grid workshop on February 9, 2011 in Brussels was quite successful.

Attendance and high level speakers from nearly all European institutions, from finance sector, research, from stakeholders such as Greenpeace, from the renewable industry associations and from industry in our field was very stimulating.

First Solar, one of EREF’s industry members, sponsored the event and gave a key contribution – focusing on the Spanish experience.

The workshop was also attended by officials from national ministries. The German Ministry for the Environment was presented with an important presentation.

Our principal conclusion after this successful event: We feel encouraged to continue our work on grids and infrastructure, and we should organize further workshops.

As an outcome of this Workshop, we see the following major points for reflection – certainly a non-exhaustive list:

• We need to work hard on the integration of small scale and large scale, centralized and decentralized renewable energy into the grid.
• This also means advocating for phasing-out all instruments and policies in all Member States and on EU level, which are still supporting nuclear and fossil capacities.
• We are increasingly convinced that only Renewables and Efficiency are sustainable, safe and domestic "Low Carbon Technologies".
• Electricity grid design and extension/enforcement/enhancement has to be adapted to the needs of integrating large shares of variable (not always dispatchable) renewable energy.
• This can often be done with smart enforcement of existing structures through advanced technology without extensive and expensive planning for new lines.
• Smart grids and Demand Side Management (DSM) will be of ever increasing importance in this context.
• A stronger focus for us is needed on distribution grids (in the competence of Member States, with a facilitating role of the European Commission), and on development and deployment of storage capacity.
• The more clearly and unambiguously Member States decide to strive for a fully renewables’ based energy supply, the easier and cheaper it will be to create the grid of the future.
• The absence of ENTSO representatives during the Workshop underlined that there is still work to be done to make the TSO level aware of its obligation to help changing the energy system towards sustainable renewable systems, to consider renewables as most important customers and not as nuisance.
• We need to connect intensively with the very active local and regional utility level in many Member States in order to align our calls for progressive and modern DSO level and good interconnections with the TSO level.
• Interconnection is a chance for change towards a fully renewable energy powered Europe, but here again more reflection and research is needed as to questions of security of supply and enforcement of existing regulatory frameworks for electricity exchange. Often barriers to new interconnectors may not so much be due to public resistance but also due to interests of Member States to shelter their own internal energy market system. Public resistance has to be analyzed and clear pro-renewable policies of the various Member States will facilitate acceptance for some new grids and interconnectors.
• EREF calls for a better modeling for grid integration and the review of certain dogma such as the quest for a single and unified European copperplate.
• Europe needs a complete paradigm shift – away from conventional thinking in big production units where the electricity is shipped over long distances to other consumption units. Our technology and its application is already today much more intelligent than encrusted structures from the days before yesterday.
• EREF underlines its call for a European coordinator for decentralized and distributed power generation, whose main task needs to be to facilitate and safeguard future development of decentralized and distributed power production, which is close enough to the consumers and therefore an integrated part of regional development and welfare.

In order to let everybody interested participate in the presentations given during our workshop, we have put them online.

We thank all speakers and the audience and promise to come back on this.

Dr. Dörte Fouquet
Lawyer, Director of EREF