EU To Launch Plan For Caspian Gas, Wind Power
Date: 11-Nov-08
Country: BELGIUM
Author: Pete Harrison
BRUSSELS - Europe should erect more wind turbines, keep a closer watch on oil stocks and improve access to Caspian gas, Europe's energy chief will say this week.
The 27-nation bloc is seeking to reduce its reliance on Russian gas after pricing disputes between Russia and transit states disrupted supplies in recent years and Russia's invasion of Georgia in August stoked tensions.
"A southern gas corridor must be developed for the supply of gas from Caspian and Middle Eastern sources... this is identified as one of the EU's highest energy security priorities," said a draft of the EU's Second Strategic Energy Review seen by Reuters on Monday.
Forty year-old laws on oil stocks will be overhauled to improve emergency supplies in case of unexpected disruptions, and the threshold will be lowered for responding to gas crises.
Russia supplies 42 percent of the bloc's gas and is competing hard to buy up volumes in north Africa and central Asia, creating fears it will one day gain a strangehold over EU gas imports.
European Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs last week visited Turkey, seeking to smooth the way for Caspian gas by resolving a disagreement over transit fees for the imports to cross Turkish territory.
The Commission will seek firm gas supply commitments from Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and will look at creating a consortium for buying Caspian gas, said the review which will be made public on Thursday.
SUPERGRID
Planning will start for a new power grid linking offshore wind turbines in the North Sea and for bolstering imports of liquefied natural gas, it added.
Linking all the North Sea's windfarms by a ring of undersea cables would smooth out any power fluctuations caused by turbulent weather, easing concerns that wind is too variable to be useful.
"It should become...one of the building blocks of a future European supergrid," said the draft.
The Commission pledged to tackle any issues hampering the construction of renewable energy, which is seen supplying a fifth of the bloc's needs by 2020.
Complementing the North Sea wind power grid would be a ring of gas and power connections encircling the Mediterranean.
"In particular, the ring is essential to develop the region's vast solar and wind energy potential," said the draft.
It also signalled a move away from the system of partially-connected national power grids served by giant nuclear gas or coal-fired power stations, towards a pan-European grid served by thousands of smaller, greener power plants.
And it detailed linking up with EU nations that are isolated and therefore vulnerable to blackouts -- providing energy solidarity for countries like Lithuania or Estonia.
The EU will also launch consultations looking further ahead at the possibility of more radical shifts, such as removing all carbon dioxide emissions from the power system by 2050.
"The demand-supply balance will become increasingly tight, possibly critically so," the review will say. "The need to address climate change will require a massive switch to high-efficiency, low carbon energy technologies."
(Reporting by Pete Harrison, editing by Dale Hudson and Peter Blackburn)
