This article is written by Alf Ole Ask in Energy and Climate which is the online newspaper of the Norwegian Climate Foundation.

EU energy ministers are only about to set a binding target for a renewable share in the energy mix at 40 percent by 2030. That is up from 32 percent as the target that applies today. By 2020, the EU’s share was just over 20 percent.

Strong forces would have increased this to 45%, as proposed by the Commission in its “RepowerEU” package presented in May. The majority rejected it.

Ministers gathered about 40 percent.

Denmark: Would go further

The Danish Minister of Energy, Dan Jørgensen, says in a comment that Denmark had wanted to go further. This applies to both the renewable goal, but also the goal of energy efficiency.

But he believes this is enough to reach the target of a 55 percent emission cut by 2030.

The Council of Ministers’ decision is to achieve the goal of 9 percent energy savings by 2030. The same as the Commission has proposed in “Fit for 55.” But this has already been proposed increased to 13 percent in the “Repower EU” package presented by the Commission in May.

Formally, neither the Council nor Parliament has started consideration of the “RepowerEU” package.

Tough negotiations

Well, the Council of Ministers (Member States) must start negotiations with the European Parliament on the actual texts of the law on renewable energy and energy saving.

A number of details need to be clarified in these negotiations.

The tendency in the European Parliament has been to find out that the climate laws presented by the Commission. Thus, it can be a lot of hard thanks before the Council and the European Parliament with the help of the European Commission, becomes the only one about the final text. It is expected that this will happen during the harvest or early next year.

Adopted gas storage

EU energy ministers legislated at the meeting in EU countries must fill their underground gas reserves to 80 percent before winter comes. The formally approved by the Minister was the text promoted between the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers (Member States). This law enters into force during the day.

Russia has completely cut or reduced gas supplies to 12 EU countries. The reason is that the countries do not comply with Russian requirements to enter into contracts to settle rubles. Russian Gazprom demands that this be done in a way that would be contrary to EU sanctions.

The EU uses about 400 billion cubic meters of gas in a year. The storage capacity is about 100 billion cubic meters.

Filling the warehouses is a decision for the EU countries to get through the winter without rationing gas.

The EU’s gas reserves are currently filled to just over 50 percent.

The stocks are unevenly distributed between the member countries. More than 70 percent of the storage capacity is in the five countries Germany, Italy, France, the Netherlands and Austria. Member countries that do not have storage themselves, or small capacity, can rent storage from others.

Companies on the Norwegian shelf are now holding back oil production and extracting more gas from the fields. This, together with extensive imports of liquefied petroleum gas (LNG) from the Middle East and the United States, is helping to replenish EU gas reserves.