Accelerating renewable energy uptake, compulsory solar carports and 3.4 million public EV charge points across Europe...
On 18 May 2022, the European Commission published its ‘REPowerEU’ Plan, which aims to speed up the transition to renewable energy and reduce Europe’s dependency on Russian fossil fuel imports. This Plan includes a Commission legislative proposal for a directive that would amend certain aspects of Directive (EU) 2018/2001 in an effort to accelerate the permitting procedures for renewable energy projects in the EU.
Individual countries across Europe are already taking a lead.
- In the Netherlands the Stimulation of Sustainable Energy Transition and Climate Transition, known as theSDE++ subsidy is open for projects submissions. It’s phased with the largest projects of 400 €/ton CO2 opening September 2023 (pushed back while the Dutch government wait for approval from the EU funding scheme)
- Last year, France’s senate approved legislation that will require owners of car parks with more than 80 parking spaces to introduce solar car ports across 50% of the car park’s surface area. They are also looking at pushing for non-agricultural land adjacent to motorways to be fast-tracked for solar farms. This is bold thinking and we hope that other governments follow suit
- Elsewhere, there are signs of the private sector proactively embracing solar car ports. In the UK for example, we’ve just delivered a scheme at Metrocentre in Gateshead where 500 parking spaces now have solar car ports (with 46 EV chargers being installed underneath them)
- Talking of EV, 3.4 million public charge points are needed throughout Europe by 2030, so says McKinsey & Company. The huge scale of public EV charging infrastructure required throughout Europe to cope with the surge in demand for EVs which were 20% of new car sales in 2021 needs addressing now! “The EV Charging Infrastructure Masterplan” conducted for a report from the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA), identified 375,000 publicly available chargers throughout Europe at the end of 2021, with a forecast of 3.4 million required by 2030
Commercial real estate lies at the heart of the solution for all of these ambitions. We bridge the gap between low carbon solutions and real estate, providing advice and guidance as well as developing tools that embrace data to drive decision making, such as our evlab® platform.
Contact us to see how we can help accelerate your route to net zero.
