Fit for 55 package: Energy from renewable sources

Briefing 19-11-2021

The Commission is proposing a new directive to amend the 2018 directive on the promotion of energy from renewable sources. This initial appraisal of the Commission’s impact assessment on the proposal finds that the impact assessment draws a clear logic between the problems, their drivers, the objectives and the policy interventions under consideration. However, the the vast amount of work which must have gone into such an assessment is to some extent impaired by the inconsistent, unclear presentation of options and the equivocal identification of preferred options. Also, the IA is not clear as to how it ultimately settles on the specific target of 40%. While the IA was clearly an extremely complex exercise and appears to be based on reliable data, analysis and modelling, different choices as to its organisation and presentation would have likely considerably improved the IA’s clarity and readability and its ability to support the policy choices made in the proposal.