Renewable Energy Consumption

• Promoting the consumption of renewable energy is one of the key means to reduce carbon emissions from electricity production, heating and transportation, while it also improves energy security and contributes to economic growth; • Repealing the early Directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC that aimed to promote renewable sources, Directive 2009/28/EC (2009 RES Directive) established a legal framework for increasing the consumption of energy from renewable sources in the EU to 20 per cent of overall energy consumption by 2020. At that time, Member States were given legally binding national targets for achieving specified levels of renewable energy growth; • The current Directive EU/2018/2001 (2018 RES Directive) requires states to act in solidarity to achieve collectively a target of 32% renewable energy in energy consumption by 2030, but replaces binding national targets with detailed governance arrangements for scrutinising individual contributions of Member States to the Union target; • The 2018 RES Directive places greater emphasis on cost-effectiveness than the 2009 RES Directive, for instance by requiring support schemes for renewable electricity to give producers market exposure in most circumstances. It also encourages Member States to seek out lower cost options for increasing renewable energy consumption by allowing them to collaborate through cooperation mechanisms; • The 2019 Electricity Directive (2019/944) and the 2019 Electricity Regulation require Member States and sectoral actors to enable renewable energy integration in networks and markets by reforming rules on their operation and development; • The 2018 RES Directive requires Member States to promote the use of renewables in energy consumed for transport, whilst preventing this and other sources of demand for bioenergy from giving rise to unsustainable fuel production practices; • Member States employ support schemes to encourage investment in RES production capacity, but legal questions arise over their compatibility with TFEU provisions concerning the free movement of goods and state aid