Dutch do Danish deal to hit clean power target

(EurActiv, 22 Jun 2020) The Netherlands agreed on Friday (19 June) to pay Denmark €100 million as part of an arrangement that will allow the Dutch government to declare at least 8 TWh of Danish surplus renewable power on its books, in an effort to meet its EU target.

According to a recent EU stocktake of clean energy deployment across Europe, the Netherlands is among the worst performers when it comes to hitting country-specific benchmarks for 2020.

The Dutch are supposed to reach 14% renewables capacity by the end of the year but Eurostat data for 2018 – the last year for which statistics are available – shows that only 7.4% of gross final energy consumption is from clean power sources.

Its government confirmed last week that biomass, hydropower, solar and wind projects in the immediate pipeline will not be enough to bridge that gap, therefore signing an agreement with Denmark that should help avoid millions of euros in penalties

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EurActiv, 22 Jun 2020: Dutch do Danish deal to hit clean power target