The EU is contemplating measures to chop electrical energy demand as a part of its efforts to deal with skyrocketing power costs, a senior European Fee official stated on Thursday (1 September).
Till now, efforts have primarily targeted on lowering gasoline consumption amid issues that Russia might additional curb gasoline flows to the area or reduce off provides fully.
However the European Fee is now additionally inspecting an electrical energy demand-reduction plan to cope with hovering power costs.
The fee is wanting into all completely different types of power value caps, however “there is perhaps additionally one thing on demand discount for electrical energy,” stated Mechthild Woersdoerfer, deputy director of the fee’s power division, instructed MEPs on the power committee.
The EU govt can also be assessing the chances of intervening within the electrical energy market and taxing corporations for his or her windfall income from excessive gasoline costs, she additionally stated.
Her feedback got here after fee president Ursula von der Leyen introduced earlier this week that the EU govt is making ready a brand new “emergency measures” bundle, acknowledging that present costs reveal “the constraints” of the EU’s power market design.
The brand new proposal, nevertheless, is not going to be finalised in time for the subsequent extraordinary assembly of power ministers scheduled for subsequent week, Woersdoerfer stated.
“There’s not a lot we are able to put together for that [meeting] besides some factual replace,” she instructed EU lawmakers.
Pure gasoline costs are already nearly 12 occasions larger than initially of 2021, whereas the value of electrical energy in nations comparable to Spain hit a brand new report this August.
Beneath the prevailing market guidelines, gasoline units the general electrical energy value, however a number of member states, together with Spain, France and Greece, have referred to as for decoupling electrical energy costs from the gasoline market.
The Czech Republic, which holds the EU council presidency, has voiced assist for an EU-wide gasoline value cap — a proposal backed by Italy and Belgium.
In the meantime, others have been calling for capping gasoline costs — an concept that has just lately gained the assist of initially opposed Austria and Germany.
Hungary buys extra gasoline
EU leaders have pledged to cut back their dependency on Russian fossil fuels as rapidly as attainable in response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Through the summer time, member states agreed to voluntarily reduce gasoline use by 15 % till March — a goal that would nonetheless develop into binding in an emergency. And nationwide authorities must inform the fee of the progress made to fulfill this goal in mid-October, and each two months afterwards.
Nevertheless, Hungary signed this week a brand new cope with Gazprom to purchase further pure gasoline on prime of its present provides — which appears at odds with its gas-saving commitments and basic pledges.
“We’d be very to see how the Hungarian authorities current the information [on the gas-saving target] to us on that date [15 October],” a fee spokesperson instructed reporters on Thursday.