The European Commission will mobilize up to 300,000 million euros in the REPowerEU plan to "stop shipments from Russia" and eliminate energy dependence, as announced on Wednesday by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
"We must reduce our dependence on Russia for energy as quickly as possible. We can do it," he said. Of the total, 72 billion will be subsidies and 225 billion loans, which could come from unused recovery plan funds.
The idea is to promote energy sufficiency to prevent a Russian supply cut, as has already happened with Poland or Bulgaria, from leaving Europe trembling. Hence, some 10,000 million will finance infrastructure for gas and LNG and 2,000 million for oil pipelines.
On another side of the measures, to reduce dependence on gas, 5% more coal would be burned and more nuclear generation would be given, to change the bases of the energy mix. They are temporary measures and are not expected to exceed a term of 15 years.
The plan will include a joint purchasing program to improve bargaining power and obtain more competitive prices, and a common strategy for dealing with supplier countries. "We know that when Europe acts united, it has more influence," argued the president. Non-EU countries such as Ukraine, Moldova or Georgia would be allowed to join.
The bulk of the funds, about 288,000 million, will be used to "accelerate and expand the transition to clean energy." In this sense, the energy efficiency and weight of renewables targets set for 2030 are advanced, which goes from having 40% of energy from renewable sources to 45%.
The Community Executive intends that solar and wind power produce 66% of the electricity in the system in 2050, twice as much as today. Thus, it is proposed that public and commercial buildings install solar panels compulsorily from 2025 and residential buildings from 2029.
Going into detail, 27,000 million will be allocated to hydrogen infrastructures; another 29,000 million euros will be invested in improving electricity distribution networks; 56,000 million to energy efficiency systems; 41,000 million to promote the adaptation of the industry to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and 37,000 million to promote the production of biomethane by the end of the decade.
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