The Baltic Sea region can be the role model for the rest of the Europe as an example of how to deliver a truly regional renewable energy on the power market – agreed the participants of the policy breakfast organized in the European Parliament on the 1st December, right after the publication of the European Commission’s winter package.
The event, hosted by Jerzy Buzek from European’s People Party and Claude Turmes from the Greens and supported by Heinrich Böll Foundation, Baltic Offshore Wind Forum and the Polish Wind Energy Association, attracted the attention of Members of the European Parliament and Permanent Representation from the Baltic Sea region.
The Baltic Sea region has already built a strong cooperation platform within the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan. It is in fact one of better integrated regions in Europe with Nordpool as the joint trading platform. The next step is to develop the existing potential in wind power. The Baltic Sea region enjoys one of the best wind potentials in Europe, with better wind power outputs than the North Sea. Yet, it has not been developed to the degree of development in the North Sea. Still, 28-30 GW of potential offshore projects is with various stages of development with Swedish, Polish and Estonian investors leading the way. On the other hand, the region needs significant infrastructure developments to fully synchronize the Baltics to the European power system and accommodate significant amount of renewable energy. These two processes should be linked to optimize regional developments and increase security of supplies in all countries in the region. In fact, the concept of the meshed Baltic offshore grid should be analyzed in this context.
– The proposals are relevant to at least three pillars of the Energy Union: the internal energy market, interconnections to better integrate renewables, and gas market backing up the integration of intermittent renewables. We have made major progress on the gas market interconnection in the region and now it is time to focus on renewable energy and power markets integration. These processes should be simultaneous – said Jerzy Buzek, Chairman of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy in the European Parliament.
The event participants discussed the role of renewable energy in this process and steps to facilitate wind offshore developments. Paula Abreu – Marques, Head of Unit for Renewables at DG Energy, suggested energy and climate plans to be published by 2018 could be a good way to start practical solutions in the region. – We need positive stories. BEMIP as a renewable energy cooperation platform could be one of the successes. Poland has a fantastic opportunity to transform its power sector based on wind and solar, for the common benefit of regional neighbors including Baltic States which needs to be resynchronized with the EU power market – concluded Claude Turmes from the Greens.
The presentations from the event are available below: