Today, the EU is facing multiple, overlapping challenges: increase the EU energy resilience, address skyrocketing energy prices and achieve the long-term climate neutrality objective.
All of them must be achieved in an efficient way: the EU cannot afford to waste resources by keeping the existing, inefficient centralised energy system or boosting obsolete solutions.
This paper is smartEn’s contribution to ensure that a more efficient energy system is possible, with active consumers at its heart.
To support this objective, it is essential to:
- set a legal definition of energy system efficiency in EU law which recognises the contribution of system-integrated consumers, including at community level, in making the energy system more efficient.
- introduce metrics to track progress towards a more efficient system with consumers onboard. smartEn proposes to introduce 3 core KPIs of Decarbonisation, Affordability and Resilience bringing clarity on the criteria that qualify an energy system as an efficient one.
Identifying what needs to be measured will support EU policymakers, Member States, regulatory authorities and system operators in drawing relevant methodologies for assessing the system efficiency impacts of energy planning, policy and investment decisions.
This should prove useful in the context of the REPowerEU plan and the implementation of emergency interventions to address high energy prices, as well as the negotiations on the Fit for 55 package and the revision of the Electricity Market Design.
