Road to a rapid transition to sustainable energy security in Europe

Abstract

Decarbonization and energy security in Europe are two faces of the same coin. They are both related to the large dependency of the European Union economy on fossil fuels, which today represent around 70% of the total supply of energy. The bulk of these energy resources are imported, with Russia being the largest supplier, accounting for 40% of natural gas and 27% of oil imports. However, fossil fuels are also the primary root cause of greenhouse gas emissions, and the European Union is committed to reduce those by 55% by 2030 (versus 1990). This report is based on the landmark research from the Joint Research Center of the European Commission, the “Integrated Database of the European Energy Sector”, which for the first time mapped actual energy uses for each country within the European Union, across 17 sectors of activity, with data granularity at the level of each process step (or end-use) of each of these sectors. Our approach here has been to systematically review these process steps (or end-uses) and qualify the extent to which they could be electrified, effectively removing the demand for fossil fuels as a result. We have focused only on those process steps where technology was already widely available and for which we evaluated the switch to be relatively easy (or attractive). In other words, we estimated the impact of rapid electrification of “easy to abate” activities. The conclusion of this evaluation is that the share of electricity demand in the final energy mix could jump from around 20% today to 50%, which would drive a reduction in emissions at end-use of around 1,300 MtCO2 /y, as well as a drop in natural gas and oil supply of around 50%. As a result of such transformation, electricity demand would nearly double, with the bulk of that growth materializing in the building sector. Short-term, the challenge of addressing climate targets while providing for energy security is thus intimately connected to buildings. While such transition would certainly require major infrastructure upgrades, which may prove a roadblock to rapid deployment, we find that the combination of energy efficiency measures (notably digital) and distributed generation penetration (rooftop solar) could significantly tame the issue, and hence help accelerate the move away from fossil fuels, with energy spend savings as high as 80% across some building types; a major driver of change. Beyond this, further potential exists for electrification. Other measures on the demand-side will include deeper renovations of the industrial stock (notably in the automotive, machinery, paper, and petrochemical industries for which our current assessment may be underestimated) and further electrification of mobility (trucks). The transition of the power system away from coal (and ultimately natural gas) will then also play a key role, followed ultimately by feedstocks substitution in industry. Some of these transitions are already on the way and will likely bring further improvements. The key message, however, is that a significant opportunity revolves around buildings to both quickly decarbonize and reduce energy dependencies in Europe. Rapid transformation of the energy system may be more feasible than we think. We notably estimate that, by 2030, an ambitious and focused effort could help displace 15% to 25% of natural gas and oil supply and reduce emissions by around 500 MtCO2 /y (note that these savings would come on top of additional measures regarding energy efficiency and flexibility, which are not the object of this study). For this to happen, approximately 100 million buildings will need renovating, and a similar number of electric vehicles would need to hit the road.