Two reports on promoting renewable energy came before Parliament in June. Mechtilde Rothe presented one on the Commission's White Paper on renewable sources of energy in the future. The other, by Rolf Linkohr, supported a European directive that would facilitate access to national grids for electricity from renewable sources of energy.
Both rapporteurs demanded that the Commission should undertake more actions to ensure that renewable energies in the EU were promoted, given the fact that CO2 emissions should be reduced and that renewable energies should be 15 per cent of total energy consumption by 2010. They also demanded immediate action from the Commission. But speakers for the EPP and ELDR said they would not support Mr Linkohr's report.
Speaking in the debate, Nuala Ahern (Greens, Leinster), said renewable energy had been something of a lame duck in the Community. The Commission's White Paper could become a point of change.
The proposal for the right of access for renewables to the electricity network is crucial. The right to sell electricity to the network at specific prices is an instrument for gradually dealing with the centralised structure. It gives secure access to the market for decentralised electricity production from renewable sources.
She said Mrs Rothe's report had excellent practical proposals. Although the Commission's targets are extremely modest, the actual implementation of even modest targets must be our aim if we are to achieve any thing real. Campaigns such as the one hundred solar communities are visionary ways of making renewables real to people.
One of the sectors of the European Union with a high percentage of CO2 emissions is the construction sector, and the attention that we must pay to buildings but are not yet paying is a crucial aspect of these reports.
Commissioner Christos Papoutsis said he welcomed both reports. The Commission would come forward with a proposal for a directive designed to facilitate grid access for renewable energy by the end of 1998.