In November 2018, the European Commission presented its strategic long-term vision for a prosperous, modern, competitive and climate-neutral economy by 2050. The strategy lays out several pathways how the EU can realise the Paris Agreement objectives to keep the global temperature increase to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to keep it to 1.5°C. It shows how Europe can lead the way to climate neutrality by investing into realistic technological solutions, empowering citizens, and aligning action in key areas such as industrial policy, finance, or research – while ensuring social fairness for a just transition.
COGEN Europe is pleased to have been included in the stakeholders’ consultation process and has provided input on how to build a climate-neutral Europe by 2050. We are convinced that a resilient, decentralised and carbon neutral energy system is possible by 2050 and that it can be achieved in a cost-effective way. We believe that cogeneration will be the backbone of this system as cogeneration can run on renewable sources, is very efficient and provides citizens, local communities and businesses with the opportunity to self-generate their heat and power.
COGEN Europe demands that citizens and businesses will be put at the heart of the energy transition and be empowered to meet their energy needs in an affordable and reliable way. They should also be rewarded when they supply flexible energy to the energy system. Secondly, COGEN Europe advocates for linking the electricity, heat and gas networks to make our energy system more flexible, efficient and cost-effective. Furthermore, European climate and energy policies should have a stronger focus on the heating and cooling sector since this is where half of the energy in Europe is consumed. Finally, the energy efficiency principle should be applied across the entire value chain, from generation via transmission and distribution to consumption. Energy efficiency should not merely mean a reduction in final energy consumption. Reductions in primary energy consumption are equally important.