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The event ‘Unpacking the Green Deal Industrial Plan: Energy Industry implications’ took place in the morning on Tuesday, 18 April 2023 as an online – 2 hours event. In an interactive setting, the webinar offered actionable intelligence, reliable insight, and a deep understanding of the latest energy lever that all sectors, including Distribution System Operators (DSOs), can pull to potentially speed up the pace of the cleaner energy transition.
In this event, E.DSO was joined by Europacable and T&D Europe with the aim to bring clarity about opportunities and loopholes of the Green Deal Industrial Plan (GDIP) and legislative initiatives falling under it: Net-Zero Industrial Act (NZIA) and Raw Materials Act (RMA).
All panellists applauded the Commission’s inclusion of grid technologies in the NZIA, which are deemed commercially viable for up-scaling and conducive to the Plan. Panellists also reflected upon the ‘two sister documents’ – Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in US and Green Deal Industrial Plan (GDIP) in Europe. Another key issue tackled by the panellists related to skills. The GDIP rightly highlights the essential role of reskilling and upskilling, but misses in its proposal the importance lifelong learning in areas crucial for the DSOs and manufacturers. The good news is that Europe can approach today’s challenges with confidence. Europe has probably the best and at the same time most intricate electricity system in the world, managed by very experienced DSOs.
Christian Buchel, Chair of E.DSO, stated that “The race to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 is a decades-long marathon, where the starting gun has already been fired, and getting to the finish line will require a fast start, with a reduction of global emissions by half by 2030. The window for action is closing fast, but it is still open. We, as an industry, we have the power to change.”
During his keynote address, Mr Jacek Truszczynski, Deputy Head of Unit ‘Green and Circular Economy’ at DG Grow, stated that “The GDIP and NIZA provide businesses with a stable regulatory framework, so as to ensure Europe’s technological sovereignty in this area and contribute to its decarbonization. It also creates the conditions for sustainability and resilience considerations, that will be in the center Commission’s actions.”
Diederik Peereboom, Secretary General of T&D Europe, emphasized that “It is essential to increase transparency about the more detailed needs and commitments of Europe’s grid operators. This will help Europe’s grid technology providers to assess the need for increased manufacturing capacity. At the same time policymakers need to help to remove obstacles in EU policy, such as the EU taxonomy and the Data Act, to allow the grid technology sector to serve the European electricity system.”
Volker Wendt, Secretary General of Europacable, stated that “It is an important milestone for the GDIP to recognise the importance of grid technologies. It will now be essential to ensure that they are consistently recognised across all relevant policy initiatives currently under consideration. Doing so will further strengthen Europe’s grid technology manufacturing excellence and secure that these critical technologies will remain ‘made in Europe’, for Europe.”
E.DSO, Europacable and T&D Europe would like to thank all the other panellists (Philipp Offenberg – (Breakthrough Energy), Nathalie Baumier (RTE), Laura Basagni (European House of Ambrosetti), who contributed significantly to the success of the discussions on the GDIP/NZIA. We were also very pleased that more than 140 participants, consisting of relevant stakeholders and other interested parties, joined us for this event.
If you missed the webinar, you can watch it again here.