UPDATE 1 – European Commission analyzes higher renewable energy target of 45% for 2030

(Updates throughout)

Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS, April 20 (Reuters) – The European Commission is assessing whether the European Union could achieve a higher target of 45% renewable energy by 2030 instead of the proposed 40% to accelerate the shift away from Russian fossil fuels in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.

“We are working full steam ahead on this to take into account, first of all, the proposal to move from 40% to 45%, but also in the context of higher energy prices,” Mechthild Woersdoerfer, deputy director general of the Commission’s Department of Energy, told a meeting of EU lawmakers on Wednesday.

Russia is a major supplier of gas to the EU, and last year the Commission proposed a 40% renewable energy target by 2030.

In 2020, the EU generated 22% of its gross final energy consumption from renewable sources such as wind, solar energy and biomass. This share varies greatly between EU countries and ranges from over 50% in Sweden to less than 10% in Luxembourg.

The new target will depend on EU countries and the European Parliament, which are negotiating it as part of a large package of climate change rules aimed at cutting EU emissions more quickly.

The 45% renewable energy target has already won the support of the EU Assembly’s chief negotiator and renewable industry groups such as SolarPower Europe – although the industry has insisted Brussels do more to unblock years of permitting delays.

Markus Pieper, Parliament’s chief lawmaker, said the new analysis was urgently needed to inform ongoing negotiations and urged the Commission not to wait until the end of the summer.

“Otherwise, we’ll start over,” he said.

Brussels estimates that tripling the EU’s wind and solar capacity by 2030 by adding 480 GW of wind and 420 GW of solar could save 170 billion cubic meters of gas demand annually.

In May, the Commission will publish a plan to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2027. Woersdoerfer said it would include a legal proposal to make it easier to obtain permits for renewable energy projects. (Reporting by Kate Abnett, editing by Marine Strauss, Alexandra Hudson)