Low carbon or supply protection, an EU dilemma?
Since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine spilled over into the energy sector, Europe has begun to accelerate its move away from its dependence on Russian energy. With the energy crisis looming over Europe, the situation is becoming increasingly difficult.
Europe is reportedly working on contingency plans to deal with a complete halt to Russian gas imports, and Germany is planning to reopen unused coal-fired power plants in the event of a gas shortage.
The news has sparked concern from many quarters that the EU is caught in a dilemma between its immediate need to preserve energy supply and its long-standing commitment to low carbon development.
Finding a partner is no easy task
The EU is highly dependent on Russia for its energy supply, with around 40% of its gas imports and 30% of its crude oil imports coming from Russia. In order to fill the gap left by Russia's energy withdrawal, the EU has been looking for new energy supply partners and is now targeting some countries in the Middle East and Africa.
Although the search for new partners may not seem difficult, it is no easy task to establish a real partnership.
Lin Boqiang, director of the China Energy Policy Institute at Xiamen University, told China News Service that the premise of cooperation between buyers and sellers is to have infrastructure support, and infrastructure investment is not a small amount, and involves cooperation negotiations, engineering and construction, the process is not easy.
The "small head" can hardly make a big difference for the time being
Because cooperation means huge investment, so some voices believe that Europe and other countries to establish cooperation is bound to be long-term cooperation, once the two sides signed a long-term gas purchase contract, will inevitably squeeze the development of renewable energy space in Europe, the European low-carbon road is bound to be blocked.
In this regard, Lin Boqiang believes that it will take several years for both sides to establish the corresponding infrastructure, and the EU will develop renewable energy as fast as possible.
He said that renewable energy sources such as wind power and photovoltaic are more controllable as indigenous energy sources, meeting both energy security and low carbon development. He judged that two or three years from now, wind power and photovoltaic will enter a period of rapid development.
But Lin Boqiang also warned that although renewable energy is controllable, it is after all a "small head", and it will take some time before it really plays a big role.
Therefore, even if the rapid development of renewable energy, can not meet the current Russian energy withdrawal brought about by the "big head" gap, in the short term still need to find new energy supply.
Recently, the European Commission formally adopted an energy plan called "REPowerEU". Although it stresses the importance of energy conservation, diversification of energy supply and accelerated promotion of renewable energy, and proposes to increase the overall target of renewable energy from 40% to 45% by 2030 in the EU's "55% carbon reduction" policy mix, the European Commission also acknowledges that the use of existing coal facilities may take "longer than initially expected".
Cleaner or 'dirtier'?
Europe is currently anxious to find new energy supply partners and to increase its coal procurement efforts. Germany plans to restart unused coal-fired power plants. Does this mean that Europe will develop in a more "dirty" way?
Lin Boqiang's analysis points out that the proportion of wind power and photovoltaic will increase in the future, and the rate of increase will be faster than the growth rate of coal. Therefore, in theory, it is cleaner, not "dirtier".
"On the face of it, the current trend seems to be in a more 'dirty' direction. But this is only temporary, as time goes by, wind power and photovoltaic soar, enough to offset the growth of coal."
In this regard, Xie Yaxuan, chief macro analyst at China Merchants Securities, believes that "REPowerEU" as the EU's emergency program, which is conducive to the EU in the medium and long term to accelerate the process of carbon neutrality and get rid of excessive reliance on Russian energy, but can not change the status quo in the near future.
"Both are important to the EU and both must be done at the same time. But the effort invested in renewable energy will be a bit greater than finding an energy replacement partner, because replacing fossil energy with renewable energy is the most fundamental and safest." Lambert said.
In the view of Ping Huang, a post-doctoral researcher at the Urban Institute of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in the Social Sciences at the University of Sheffield, the development of renewable energy and the replacement of fossil energy will be a long and choppy process. From an economic logic, the EU energy market is essentially a free market, and the possible future de-escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the easing of sanctions against Russia, and the fall in oil and gas prices will all somewhat weaken the political and economic momentum of the EU's low-carbon energy transition.
