EU Renewable Energy Directive

In accordance with the new guidelines stemming from the President's strategy Wind of Change, the Sustainable Development Observatory therefore decided to carry out an ex-post impact study to assess the factors underlying the differing levels of implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) and the transition to more decentralised energy systems across Member States. In this respect, the study will devote special attention to the influence of two factors:

• the involvement of civil society and
• the ownership structure of renewable energy facilities (i.e., a balanced mix between small scale producers and larger companies).

Complementing these objectives with a practical dimension, the study will then identify good practices in Member States while taking into consideration their national contexts, and develop recommendations about the energy policy beyond 2014 for the EU institutions and for Members States, particularly with a view on the upcoming 2030 policy package.

Scope

In order to make the best use of the available financial, human and time resources, the study will have a limited scope both in geographical and thematic terms.

Geographically, the study will concentrate on six Member States, selected so as to provide a balanced geographical representation (new and "old" Member States, different success levels of implementation, etc.): Bulgaria, France, Germany, Lithuania, Poland, and the UK. A specific region in each of these countries will be selected where visits to renewable energy installations will be held and possibly a stakeholder workshop will be organised.

From the thematic point of view, and given that exploring the role of civil society is among the main goals of the project, the study will look into renewable energy sources in which local communities are typically involved. More precisely, solar (thermal and photovoltaic), wind, and biomass (excluding biofuels) were selected.

Methodology

A variety of methods will be employed, but given that quantitative assessments have already been performed by other institutions, more emphasis will be put on qualitative methods capable of extracting in-depth information from stakeholders. Questionnaires, interviews, workshops, visits to renewable energy installations and a literature review are among the chosen methods. Relevant statistics will provide background information to better frame and interpret these data. The information obtained will then be treated and compiled into a report addressing the main project goals.

Outputs

The main output will be a report identifying:

1. the main factors accounting for the different levels of implementation of the RED across Member States, emphasising in particular the role of civil society and of a balanced ownership structure of renewable installations in that respect;
2. good (and eventually bad) practices in the six selected Member States, each country featuring in the report as a case-studies;
3. policy recommendations to the European Institutions and to Member States.

The report will be made freely available in electronic format.

In order to disseminate the report among a broader public, a summary brochure with an attractive design will also be prepared.

In addition to several stakeholder workshops already mentioned, a final workshop with local, national and EU level stakeholders in Brussels will be organised in order to discuss a draft version of the report.