Frans Timmermans
Executive Vice-President for the European Green Deal
Kadri Simson
Commissioner for Energy
25 May, 2020
Dear Executive Vice-President Timmermans,
Dear Commissioner,
An inclusive Green Recovery Plan
We thank you for your work on keeping the climate crisis and energy transition central to the COVID-19 Green Recovery package.
We welcome the proposal for an EU Tender Scheme outlined in the leaked Green Recovery proposal. However, we are concerned that this is confined only to renewable electricity thereby ignoring the important contribution of renewable heating technologies, SME’s, supply-chains and the vast pipeline of projects make to the economy. These SME’s, companies and local solutions providers are ready and able to deliver real investments which provide significant reductions on household energy bills and regional, inclusive growth. Therefore, we call on you to expand the EU Tender Scheme to renewable electricity and heating.
Furthermore, the Green Infrastructure Fund for Renewables should also be opened to renewable heating and cooling infrastructure, particularly district heating schemes. There is no justification for public financing for fossil fuel infrastructure. Such a scheme must be based on availability, going beyond an approach on LCoE only, integrating systems costs and externalities.
We look forward to working with you to ensure the Green Recovery Package is a success.
Yours sincerely
Bioenergy Europe
European Geothermal Energy Council
European Renewable Energies Federation
Association of European Renewable Energy Research Centres
Solar Heat Europe/ESTIF