MEPs push homegrown technology for green energy

MEPs in the European Parliament’s informal Cleantech Friendship Group (CFG) want to see energy and technology sovereignty play a stronger role in the EU’s competitiveness strategy. 

“The best way for us, as Europeans, to know peace again is to weaken the centre of gravity of the Russian regime,” said Thomas Pellerin-Carlin, a French MEP from the Socialists and Democrats Group who co-chairs the CFG. “We need to have homegrown energy with homemade technology.”

Pellerin-Carlin was speaking on March 6 at the launch of the CFG’s programme of activities for the 2024-29 parliamentary mandate, an event attended by European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

The group has doubled in size since its creation in 2022 and now includes 32 MEPs from 14 EU states. Politically, they come from the Socialists and Democrats Group, the European People’s Party (EPP), the Greens, Renew Europe and the European Conservatives and Reformists Group. 

MEPs from the right and far-right Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations groups do not take part, nor do those from the Left.

The CFG has taken a close interest in the evolution of the EU’s Clean Industrial Deal policy, which was finally published by the Commission in February. This foresees €600 million in funding from Horizon Europe being allocated to “deployment ready” clean technology projects, which could then be picked up by instruments such as the Innovation Fund. 

In the current mandate, the CFG will pay particular attention to batteries, electrolysers, heat pumps, wind power components and solar photovoltaic technologies. According to Portuguese MEP Lídia Pereira (EPP), the group’s other co-chair, these technologies promise to be both climate-friendly and able to support Europe’s decarbonisation and energy cost-cutting efforts.

Long-term view

Pellerin-Carlin thinks that policymakers need to be more decisive in their approach to clean technology, calling the belief that climate policy alone would drive the market “a form of naivety.” He dates this attitude to the resurgence of the green vote at the 2019 parliamentary elections. 

“There was this idea that we, as Europeans, would be leading [in cleantech], but without any kind of explanation of why we would be leading,” he told Science|Business.

To make up for the deployment lag in clean technologies, he now advocates policies that are tailored by sector and target both the demand and supply sides. 

With the International Energy Agency estimating that 35% of the emissions reductions needed by 2050 will come from technologies that are not yet available on the market, he wants to see investments triggered quickly, so that “in the next decade, those technologies can be maturing to put us on the right track.”

To this end, the Commission’s forthcoming Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework will target a faster approval of state aid measures for cleantech manufacturing and renewable energy and storage technologies. 

While backing the need to address hurdles and complications in the legislation, Pereira warned against blurring the lines between simplification and deregulation. “It has to be easy, but without putting at stake the [EU’s] climate goals,” she told Science|Business.

Fit for society

Focusing on the long term does not only concern investments and regulations; it also means looking at potential interactions between people and clean technologies. “We must not think about technology alone, but think about the socio-technical systems we live in, the socio-technical systems we want to live in,” Pellerin-Carlin said. 

He wants to see social science practices integrated in projects from the start, to increase the chances that technologies will be received positively by future users and fit into society. It is also a way to promote “sobriety” in technology usage, the MEP added, restraining both production and consumption patterns to avoid waste and limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Examining the perceptions and real needs of consumers early on can help the cleantech industry target the demands made on limited natural resources, whether that involves energy, land or raw materials.

“The most important thing to bear in mind is that we really need to decarbonise to grow,” Pereira said at the event. “This has been always my understanding of what it means to combine both economy and environment.”

Questioned on the future role of nuclear power, the MEP said that the deployment of large nuclear plants will take too long to meet political needs such as curbing energy prices or delivering on the Commission’s competitiveness plans. However, she does not exclude the use of small modular reactors. 

“We need an operating grid that ensures predictability and stability, and this is something that is still missing,” she said.