Accelerating the deployment of renewable energy

KEY POINTS

REPowerEU plan

• The European Commission set out its REPowerEU plan in May 2022 in response to the hardships and global energy market disruption caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
• As part of the plan, the EU’s energy laws on renewable energy (Directive (EU) 2018/2001), the energy performance of buildings (Directive 2010/31/EU) and energy efficiency (Directive 2012/27/EU) have been revised.
• The initial plan included measures to speed up the deployment of renewable energy projects; however, the worsening energy situation required the more urgent action set out in this regulation (Regulation (EU) 2022/2577).

Overriding public interest

• Under the regulation, the planning, construction and operation of plants and installations for the production of renewable energy is presumed to be in the overriding public interest.
• This allows such projects to benefit from a simplified assessment for a number of environmental rules included in specific EU directives.

Main elements

• Solar energy equipment on artificial structures
  • The permit-granting process must not exceed 3 months.
  • Solar panels are exempted from environmental impact assessments.
  • Permits for solar energy equipment of a capacity up to 50 kW to be considered and tacitly agreed 1 month from their application if there are no issues of grid safety, stability or reliability.
• Heat pumps
  • The permit-granting process must not exceed 1 month for the installation of heat pumps below 50 MW and 3 months for ground source heat pumps.
  • For certain categories of heat pumps, grid connections to the transmission or distribution grid are permitted following notification.
• Repowering renewable energy power plants
  • The permit-granting process for repowering projects, including all relevant environmental assessments, must not exceed 6 months.
  • Where repowering results in an increase of up to 15% in the capacity of the power plant, grid connections will be permitted within 3 months.

Scope

• The regulation applies to all permit-granting processes that have a starting date within its period of application, and it does not have an effect on national rules establishing shorter deadlines than those laid down in the regulation.
• EU Member States are also allowed to apply the regulation to pending permit-granting processes that have not resulted in a final decision before 30 December 2022, provided that the application shortens the process and that pre-existing third-party legal rights are preserved.

Amending Regulation (EU) 2024/223

Amending Regulation (EU) 2024/223 extends the application of some articles and introduces several changes.

• A new article specifies that assessing alternatives in the context of the relevant environmental assessments should take into account any alternatives that ensure the achievement of the same objectives as the project in question in terms of deployment of renewable energy capacity using the same renewable technology, within the same or similar time frame and at no significantly higher cost. This article has applied since 11 January 2024.
• As of 1 July 2024, the 6-month time limit for the permit-granting process for the repowering of renewable energy projects will only apply to renewable energy projects located in a dedicated renewable area.