DELIVERING A FULLY DE-CARBONISED, FULLY RELIABLE POWER SUPPLY BY 2050

Mission

The Power Programme focuses on policies that will fully de-carbonise Europe’s power supply by 2050 at the latest. These policies include prohibition of new unabated coal plant construction, support for commercialization of carbon-capture-and-storage technology, advancing large-scale end-use efficiency and accelerating deployment of renewable energy.

What we do

In cooperation with the Regulatory Assistance Project Europe (RAP Europe), we have designed an integrated programme of strategic initiatives for 2010 to de-carbonise the EU power supply and promote the widespread adoption of large-scale energy efficiency measures. Together, the initiatives have the potential to save about 2,100 metric tonnes of CO2 annually by 2030.

We use our established network of relationships and grantees in Brussels and EU member states to target the most promising political opportunities:

1.    Stopping unabated coal and promoting carbon capture and storage (CCS). We concentrate on the EU countries that are planning to build the most coal-fired power plants: the UK, Netherlands, Germany and Poland. This work is reinforced in Brussels, where we focus on promoting commercialization of CCS, while eliminating unabated coal from the power sector by 2030 by strengthening the Emissions Trading Scheme or by the adoption of standards for power plant CO2 emissions.

2.    Creating the regulatory and market frameworks for large-scale energy efficiency investments. We promote policies that are politically achievable and replicable in different EU member states. This covers a range of approaches, including: binding efficiency mandates (revision of the Energy Efficiency Action Plan), rules for power markets, policies on “white certificates”, efficiency obligations and whole-building retrofits.

3.    Promoting large-scale renewables: “Roadmap 2050” and the “Smart Energy for Europe” Platform. We establish an independent platform of relevant stakeholders to advocate for power sector policies that help the EU meet its goal of reducing economy-wide emissions by 80-95% by 2050. Leveraging leading-edge work by experts from across Europe, including Roadmap 2050, the platform will seek to establish policy and regulatory frameworks at EU and member state levels to drive a fully de-carbonised, fully reliable power supply by 2050.

Case study / Success story

Of all forms of power generation, coal is the most climate polluting. In 2007, the ECF prioritized to holding up a wave of planned new unabated coal plants in Europe, while simultaneously promoting credible low carbon alternatives.

The UK, as a climate leadership country, was one of the countries intending to allow more than 10 new coal plants without firm guarantees on carbon capture and storage (CCS). The Power team worked with partners and grantees in the UK to build a campaign to stop the first of the planned coal plants, Kingsnorth in Kent, and secure a better government coal policy.

Two years later, the UK government proudly announced a new coal policy where new plants will be allowed, but only with CCS technology from the outset. In parallel, the strategy for renewable energy was strengthened to ensure the lights would not go off. The effort was won through the bold work of ECF’s grantees and the careful building and coordination of voices across different sectors calling for the alternative approaches.