Recommendations

Analysis of the final NECPs provides crucial insights into the EU’s future energy ambitions. However, building a more complete understanding of the bloc and Member States’ plans is prevented by some failures of the NECP writing process.

The European Commission is currently in the process of reviewing the regulations that govern the NECP process. In this context, we present three key criticisms of the NECP process and provide recommendations to the Commission for governance improvements.

The Commission has provided a template for reporting key energy and climate targets as part of its implementation regulation, which includes emissions, final energy demand, electricity generation and installed capacity. Yet, few Member States provide a complete set of data for key energy metrics covered by the reporting template. Data coverage becomes even poorer for the years post 2030. Although 2030 is the primary consideration of this iteration of NECPs, providing data and targets all the way out to 2050 is very important for providing long-term certainty to stakeholders.

In the next NECP cycle, we recommend that the Commission uses all measures available to it to enforce full and proper reporting by Member States, and if existing measures are insufficient, to consider introducing new ones.

We also recommend that the Commission ensures the reporting process is as simplified and streamlined as possible to minimise the administrative burden on Member States and better facilitate complete reporting.

The next iteration of NECPs will be looking beyond 2030 to 2040. In the coming years Europe’s energy mix will become even more dominated by renewables and its energy system will become increasingly electrified. Ensuring adequate system flexibility, through improved grid infrastructure, demand side flexibility and expanded energy storage, will be essential to delivering a clean, efficient and secure energy system.

4.2.1 Expand reporting categories for new system needs

The NECP template needs to be updated to better reflect Europe’s changing energy landscape and capture its key elements. 

We recommend that the Commission updates the reporting template to include clear targets on electrification rate and deployment of associated key technologies (such as EVs and heat pumps).

We recommend that the template is updated to include quantified targets for storage and demand-side flexibility that are fully aligned with the flexibility needs assessment process set out in the Electricity Market Design reform. In addition to this, NECPs should include comprehensive and detailed policies and measures for delivering these targets.

We also recommend that the template is updated to include targets on grid planning. This includes planned investment volumes at the transmission level and distribution level respectively, as well as an assessment of whether external plans drawn up by TSOs and DSOs are compatible with the renewables targets set out in the NECP.

4.2.2 Increase detail on existing metrics

NECPs could also provide greater visibility of which sectors of Member States’ economies will be most dependent on fossil fuels in the future. This can help provide stakeholders with clarity on where resources can be best allocated to maximise fossil fuel displacement and accelerate the energy transition.

We recommend that the NECPs reporting requirements for final energy demand are expanded to cover all sectors of the economy (transport, buildings, industry, other sectors) and by fuel type (coal, oil, gas, electricity, renewables and biofuels, other fossil, heat).

The Commission does not make data from the NECPs readily available in a single data source. This means in order to analyse and understand the EU and Member States’ targets, stakeholders must examine NECPs individually, extracting data manually. Often key data will not be made clear and obvious in the documents — it can be hidden within charts or referred to only in text without clear consistency or structure. As a result, NECP data is highly inaccessible and stakeholders are faced with a huge challenge to create clear outlooks that are consistent across Member States.

It is vital that NECPs are accessible and understandable to the public, otherwise they cannot serve their purpose as roadmaps for the energy transition.

We recommend that the Commission requires all reporting templates to be completed in full and submitted digitally, after which the Commission can collate all of this information into one publicly available data source.