EU mulls higher 2030 targets to ensure achieving climate neutrality by 2050
The European Commission has launched a process to assess setting more ambitious 2030 targets on renewable energy and stepping up energy efficiency action, with the aim of ensuring the EU delivers on its pledge to become climate neutral by 2050. The process is beginning with a review of the Renewable Energy Directive (2018/2001/EU) and the […]
Strong political will and access to European electricity market – key enablers of RES integration challenges in Western Balkans
Authors: REPCONS project team of key experts Experts from the Western Balkans see energy transition as a development opportunity for countries in the region that allows building modern, environmentally and climate-friendly power systems by 2050. Decarbonization of the power sectors needs to be achieved dominantly through the application of solar photovoltaic and wind power technologies, […]
Clim@ finalist Whole Surplus doesn’t let food go to waste
While hundreds of millions of people in the world face hunger, an incredible amount of food perishes or is landfilled. Whole Surplus is developing artificial intelligence for an ambitious aim: to improve operations of the companies in the sector and help those in need at the same time. The startup based in Turkey was ranked […]
EU to introduce plastic waste tax
The European Union is introducing a tax on non-recycled plastic packaging from 1 January 2021. The tax will be paid by member states into the EU’s general budget. The levy is one of the measures to finance the COVID-19 recovery package of EUR 750 billion. “As a first step, a new own resource will be […]
GIZ ORF-EE working together with associations of municipalities towards sustainable urban mobility
Through cooperation with associations of municipalities and cities, numerous local authorities from the Western Balkans laid out their sustainable urban mobility strategy and made first steps toward a people-centered urban mobility system. The endeavour was facilitated by the Open Regional Fund for South-East Europe – Energy Efficiency (ORF-EE), a regional project implemented by the Deutsche […]
Most read in July: Energy democracy coming to Southeastern Europe
The wave of energy democracy in the region is slowly strengthening. The story on citizens in Greece joining hands to speed up energy transition was the most read article in July on the English language version of Balkan Green Energy News. The list is also available for the Serbian language version of the website (Najčitanije […]
Southeast Electricity Network Coordination Center opens in Thessaloniki
Four transmission system operators founded a regional security coordinator for security analysis in operational planning, for adequacy forecasts, grid modeling and outage planning. The Southeast Electricity Network Coordination Center is based in Thessaloniki in Greece. Greece’s Independent Power Transmission Operator (IPTO or Admie), Italy’s Terna, Romania’s Transelectrica and Bulgaria’s ESO-EAD announced they established the Southeast Electricity […]
EU preparing CO2 tax for products from other countries
The European Commission launched public consultations on taxation rules that would help its climate agenda. It expressed the intention to revise the internal Energy Tax Directive and to introduce a carbon border adjustment mechanism in line with the European Green Deal. The latter, effectively a CO2 tax, could be applied for imported and domestic goods […]