As Europe moves towards net-zero emissions, policymakers are looking at all available sources of energy, including new low-carbon gases like hydrogen, to decarbonise at least cost. But direct electrification \u2013 of transport, industry and buildings \u2013 remains the top priority for the European Commission.<\/p>\n
The EU\u2019s aspiration to reach climate neutrality by 2050 means \u201cincreased ambition\u201d to cut emissions in the short term, said Paula Abreu Marques, a senior official at the European Commission\u2019s energy department.<\/p>\n
That means making the most of all available sources of energy in order to reduce emissions as quickly as possible across all sectors of the economy.<\/p>\n
Scientists have warned that time is running short to contain global warming \u201cwell below 2\u00b0C\u201d and as close as possible to 1.5\u00b0C, the main objective of the Paris Agreement. And getting there implies peaking global emissions as early as possible in the 2020s, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN body.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore and more we see sector coupling and sector integration at the core of this debate,\u201d Marques told a EURACTIV event earlier this month, saying the new Commission headed by Ursula von der Leyen \u201cwill do a lot about it in the next five years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sector coupling has become a buzzword in Brussels. Simply put, it means linking together electricity and gas networks in order to decarbonise at least cost energy-hungry sectors such as transport, buildings, industry and even agriculture.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the EURACTIV event, Marques clarified what the Commission means by sector coupling and sector integration.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, sector integration is the way we are linking the various components of the energy system,\u201d Marques said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the first component is direct electrification\u201d \u2013 in buildings, industry and transport \u2013 she told participants at the event, organised with support from Spanish energy utility firm Iberdrola.<\/p>\n
Indirect electrification<\/p>\n
The second component, she said, is \u201cindirect electrification\u201d where excess renewable power from wind and solar is used to produce low-carbon fuels like hydrogen, which can then be used for heavy-duty transport and energy-intensive industries like steel and cement.<\/p>\n
A third aspect is circular economy, where waste gases from industry and excess heat from data centres are captured and used for heating homes and businesses, Marques said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd last but not least, the fourth component is linking all the dots,\u201d the official said. This includes interconnecting distribution and transmission grids, as well as enabling \u201creverse flows\u201d in gas and heat networks in order to allow the injection of locally-sourced biomethane and other waste gases into the grid, she explained.<\/p>\n
And for the European Commission, the connection of electricity and gas networks \u2013 sector coupling \u2013 is a key enabler of all this, Marques said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is very important. Why? Because it allows decarbonising sectors that are difficult to decarbonise,\u201d she explained, saying the rise of cheap wind and solar power makes it \u201ceasier for electricity to decarbonise\u201d sectors like heating, buildings, industry and even agriculture.<\/p>\n
Moreover, coupling electricity with gas helps prevent \u201coversized infrastructure\u201d growth in power networks, which the Commission said will form the backbone of Europe\u2019s low-carbon energy system by 2050.<\/p>\n
An often-cited example is excess electricity produced by offshore wind farms, which can be transformed into hydrogen via electrolysis and subsequently stored in the gas network.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will hear a lot about this in the coming years, starting with the European Green Deal that will be presented in the first hundred days of the new Commission,\u201d Marques said.<\/p>\n
Hydrogen is \u201cthe glue\u201d<\/p>\n
Calls to improve gas and electricity interconnections are also driven by the move towards a more decentralised energy system, where consumers and small businesses are becoming producers of energy.<\/p>\n
That means connecting local producers of renewable electricity and biomethane to the grid, in order to minimise the need for expanding large-scale transmission networks.<\/p>\n
The gas industry has talked up the potential of biomethane and hydrogen as a key enabler of the energy transition, saying new low-carbon gases can easily be stored in the existing gas infrastructure, and used at times of peak electricity demand, thereby minimising the cost of decarbonisation.<\/p>\n
\u201cHydrogen is the glue to bring all of those sectors together,\u201d said James Watson, secretary-general of Eurogas, a trade organisation.<\/p>\n
The European Commission has heeded those calls, saying hydrogen will play a \u201cpivotal role\u201d to decarbonise energy because it helps fill the \u201cshortcoming\u201d of electricity networks.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll cannot be electrified, that\u2019s true,\u201d said Ville Niinist\u00f6, a Finnish MEP from the Greens group in the European Parliament. \u201cBut we have to remember that energy coupling is about getting rid of fossil fuels as fast as possible. It\u2019s not about giving fossil gas more time,\u201d he told participants at the EURACTIV event.<\/p>\n
Niinist\u00f6\u2019s point reflects strong scepticism among environmentalists that industry talk about \u201cgreen gas\u201d and sector coupling is just that \u2013 talk.<\/p>\n
\u201cSector coupling is not an aim in itself,\u201d said Lisa Fischer from climate think tank E3G. \u201cWe need to remind ourselves why we are doing this \u2013 and that is decarbonisation,\u201d she added. \u201cWe need to keep our eyes on the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Renewable power \u201cmost efficient and competitive\u201d<\/p>\n
Energy firm Iberdrola wouldn\u2019t disagree. Although the electricity and gas sectors have a lot to gain from joining forces, sector coupling also has its limits, said Elena Le\u00f3n Mu\u00f1oz, regulatory director at the Spanish utility.<\/p>\n
\u201cElectricity based on renewables is the most efficient and competitive way to decarbonise energy at the moment,\u201d Mu\u00f1oz told the audience at the EURACTIV event. \u201cAnd this is a fact, not an opinion,\u201d she stressed.<\/p>\n
Renewables are now the cheapest form of electricity, with costs around or even below wholesale electricity prices in many countries, according to Agora Energiewende, a German think tank. And costs are expected to fall by a further 30% by 2030, Mu\u00f1oz said.<\/p>\n
But renewable electricity isn\u2019t just the cheapest, it\u2019s also the most efficient, Mu\u00f1oz pointed out. \u201cWhy is it more efficient? Because it doesn\u2019t require combustion, of course. And also electrical appliances are two or three times more efficient than the rest of them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
According to Mu\u00f1oz, the first priority for Europe is therefore to decarbonise electricity, by growing the share of renewables, which currently represent only 32.3% of total power production in Europe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen the next priority is to electrify the economy. And the good news is that we can do it now,\u201d Mu\u00f1oz added, saying almost 80% of total energy consumption in Europe could be electrified, including transport and heating.<\/p>\n
Hydrogen, meanwhile, should be used in priority to decarbonise hard-to-electrify sectors, such as shipping, aviation, and high-temperature industries, she said. But hydrogen production volumes are currently too small for that to happen at the speed and scale necessary to decarbonise the economy, she warned.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of us desire hydrogen to be here. But the truth is, it isn\u2019t,\u201d she said, suggesting hydrogen could become competitive on a mass scale by 2030 or 2035 but that Europe could not afford to wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cRenewables became competitive after 20-25 years,\u201d Mu\u00f1oz said. \u201cI\u2019m just wondering whether we should expect this to go faster with hydrogen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Europe moves towards net-zero emissions, policymakers are looking at all available sources of energy, including new low-carbon gases like hydrogen, to decarbonise at least cost. But direct electrification \u2013 of transport, industry and buildings \u2013 remains the top priority for the European Commission. The EU\u2019s aspiration to reach climate neutrality by 2050 means \u201cincreased […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572,5571],"tags":[10630,16430],"supplier":[5585],"class_list":["post-69188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","category-co2-based","tag-hydrogen","tag-ipcc","supplier-european-union"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69188"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=69188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}