3.2. Low-cost, low-carbon electricity supply

Electricity will play a central role in the establishment of an environmentally sustainable low-carbon economy. Renewable energy sources lie at the core of this development. The uptake of low-carbon electricity generation is too slow due to the high costs involved. There is a pressing need to find solutions that reduce costs significantly, with enhanced performance, sustainability and public acceptance to accelerate the market deployment of low-cost, reliable and low-carbon electricity generation. Activities shall focus on research, development and full scale demonstration of innovative renewables, including small and micro-scale energy systems, efficient, flexible and low-carbon emission fossil power plants and carbon capture and storage, or CO_(2) re-use technologies. The objective for wind energy is to reduce the cost of electricity production of onshore and offshore wind by up to about 20 % by 2020 compared to 2010, to increasingly move offshore, and to enable proper integration in the electricity grid. The focus will be on the development, testing and demonstration of next generation wind energy conversion systems of larger scale (including innovative energy storage systems), higher conversion efficiencies and higher availabilities for both on- and offshore (including remote locations and hostile weather environments) as well as new serial manufacturing processes. Environmental and biodiversity aspects of wind energy development will be taken into account. The cost of solar energy, covering photovoltaics (PV) and concentrating solar power (CSP), should be halved by 2020 compared to 2010, if it is to substantially increase its share of the electricity market. For PV, this will need further research on, inter alia, novel concepts and systems as well as demonstration and testing of mass production with a view to large-scale deployment and building integration of PV. For CSP, the focus will be on developing ways to increase efficiency while reducing costs and environmental impact, enabling industrial up-scaling of demonstrated technologies by building first-of-a-kind power plants. Solutions to efficiently combine the production of solar electricity with water desalination will be tested. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a key option that has to be widely deployed on a commercial scale at global level to meet the challenge of a decarbonised power generation and low-carbon industry by 2050. The objective is to minimise the extra-cost of CCS in the power sector for coal-fired, gas-fired and oil-shale fired power plants compared to equivalent plants without CCS and energy intensive industrial installations. Support will be given, in particular, to demonstrate the full CCS chain for a representative portfolio of different capture, transport, storage and re-use technology options. This will be accompanied by research to further develop these technologies and to deliver more competitive capture technologies, improved components, integrated systems and processes, safe geological storage and rational solutions and public acceptance for the re-use of captured CO_(2) to enable the commercial deployment of CCS technologies for fossil fuel power plants and other carbon-intensive industries going into operation after 2020. Support will also be given to clean coal technologies as technologies complementary to CCS. Geothermal, hydro, and marine energy as well as other renewable energies can contribute to the decarbonisation of the European energy supply while enhancing its flexibility to variable production and use of energy. The objective is to further develop and bring to commercial maturity cost-effective and sustainable technologies, enabling large-scale deployment at an industrial scale including grid integration. Enhanced geothermal systems is a technology that should be further researched, developed and demonstrated notably in the fields of exploration, drilling and heat production. Ocean energies such as tidal, current or wave energy and osmotic power offer zero-emission and predictable energy and can also contribute to the development of the full potential of offshore wind energy (combination of marine energies). Research activities should include laboratory scale innovative research into low-cost reliable components and materials in a high corrosion, biofouling environment as well as demonstrations under the varied conditions found in European waters.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-11-04 · Text as adopted (Official Journal); later amendments are not incorporated in this text.