Key findings
The Project
RES POLICY MONITORING DATABASE: FINAL REPORT
In March 2022, the RES MONITOR final project report was published, identifying and assessing the barriers blocking wind and solar energy projects in all 27 EU countries and the UK. The report came less than a week after the European Union announced plans 'to make Europe independent from Russian fossil fuels well before 2030’ as a response to President Putin’s war in Ukraine. Accelerating the construction of wind and solar projects will be essential if the EU and UK are to break Putin’s grip on the European energy market. Eclareon’s new research finds significant barriers to projects in all countries, with administrative processes like planning and permitting being the most common and most serious issues blocking new renewables developments in Europe. Under the report’s index system, no country had ‘low’ or ‘minimal’ barriers. In fact, researchers found that barriers in many places made the rollout of wind and solar projects effectively impossible.
For more information, please see the full report
Main conclusions of the report:
- - Barriers related to administrative processes are now the biggest roadblock to developments in Europe. An overwhelming majority of countries face administrative issues blocking deployment, especially the high complexity, long duration and low transparency of administrative procedures. The integration of renewables in spatial and environmental planning represents another major challenge. These barriers are also amongst the most severely rated. In Hungary, Ireland and Poland barriers are rated so serious as to make project development nearly impossible - at least for wind energy.
- - Barriers related to the political and economic framework are found all over Europe. While they are no longer as dominant as in the past, these barriers remain the most serious blocks in Hungary and Romania, and more recently in Lithuania and Italy.
- - Market structure is still a block to development. While these barriers are generally less serious, they are especially problematic in Italy, Czechia, Germany, Finland, Spain, Poland, Hungary and France.
- - Wind and solar PV projects also face issues dealing with the cost of grid access or the transparency of the grid connection procedure. Countries such as Hungary, Greece, Bulgaria, Austria, or Belgium are strongly affected.
Barrier Index, showing the degree of severity of the barriers impact on RES deployment in the EU27 and UK
