EU drafts plan to avoid disputes over green energy megaprojects | WKZO

Kate Abnett and Julia Payne

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union will outline how its member countries should jointly develop large renewable energy projects to avoid project delays due to disputes over the division of the bill, a Reuters document showed.

As Europe accelerates its transition to low-carbon energy, countries are planning to build large new wind farms and other offshore energy projects that will connect multiple countries.

How governments and companies in these countries split the bill for such projects remains an open question, and Brussels fears disputes over who should pay could hamper the construction of new major green energy hubs.

“We do not underestimate the potential for conflict, disputes and delays in projects of this complexity,” a senior EU official said.

The European Commission’s draft guidance, due to be published this week and seen by Reuters, will provide the basis for governments to negotiate agreements on these major offshore renewable energy projects.

For example, countries should consider collecting some of the revenue from congestion and putting that money into a fund that could invest in future renewable energy projects that will benefit many countries in the region, the draft says.

Such a programme would “address investment gaps that are persistently difficult to fill” for large cross-border energy projects, the draft states.

Other ways to cover financing gaps could include “statistical transfer” transactions, in which one country invests in a renewable energy project in another country in exchange for receiving credits that the investing country can count toward meeting its renewable energy goals, it says in project.

Belgium and France are currently at odds over a planned new large wind farm off the coast of Dunkirk, which Belgium wants to move elsewhere.

The project said countries could also explore new ways of collectively owning such projects, including by launching new offshore electricity transmission entities to develop offshore electricity grid projects linked to multiple countries.

He also called on countries to decide early on how to share the congestion revenue that the project will ultimately generate, and to consider sharing that revenue not only based on the division of ownership of the project, but also on the cost of operating it.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett and Julia Payne; Editing by Andrea Ricci)