Evolution of the EU legal framework for promoting RES-E: A market compatible paradigm shift?

Abstract

EU energy law has long been challenged to reconcile respective instruments for decarbonisation and liberalisation. This trade-off appears particularly pronounced in promoting renewable energy-sourced electricity (RES-E), given that promotional mechanisms may contradict EU law on the internal electricity market. Alongside support schemes by Member States, EU law also puts in place promotion measures to remove economic and non-economic barriers to deploying RES-E. The debate on EU top-down steering to align national support schemes for renewable electricity with the internal electricity market has been intense. However, the role of Union-level promotional mechanisms in prompting a regime shift towards market compatibility has not received the attention it deserves. Focusing the analytical lens on the evolution of the supranational legal framework for promoting RES-E, this article examines how it keeps evolving to add coherence to EU energy law. Our findings demonstrate that its different evolutionary stages vary in the degree of reconciling with electricity market legislation and the legal approaches to pursuing such consistency. The analysis further sheds light on the general trends in the evolution of EU law on promoting RES-E, the lessons learned and the remaining challenges.