Introducción
President von der Leyen announced the European Green Deal Industrial Plan in January 2023. It sets out how the EU will lead the way towards climate neutrality by investing in clean technologies and improving investment conditions to safeguard the EU’s resilience and competitiveness.
The European Green Deal Industrial Plan is based on the following four pillars.
- A predictable and simplified regulatory environment
- Faster access to sufficient funding
- Skills development
- Open trade for resilient supply chains
In response to the plan, the Commission proposed the Critical Raw Materials Regulation, which accompanies the Net-Zero Industry Regulation to ensure access to rare earths vital for key technologies, and the reform of the electricity market design so that consumers benefit from lower costs for renewable energy.
The Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) creates a regulatory framework to boost the competitiveness of EU industry and technologies crucial for decarbonisation.
The NZIA Regulation aims to enhance European manufacturing capacity for net-zero technologies and their key components, by addressing the barriers to scaling up production in Europe. The Regulation will boost the competitiveness of the net-zero technology sector, attract investment and improve market access for clean technologies in the EU. This supports the transition to clean energy and enhances the EU’s energy resilience.
The Regulation sets a target for net-zero manufacturing capacity to meet at least 40% of the EU’s annual deployment needs by 2030, providing predictability, certainty and long-term signals to manufacturers and investors. By 2030, the act aims to create a Union market for CO2 storage services. It sets a Union-wide target and requires an annual CO2 storage capacity of at least 50 million tonnes.
The NZIA Regulation boosts demand for renewable energy by introducing mandatory non-price criteria in public procurement procedures for clean technologies and renewable energy auctions. Public authorities must take into account criteria such as sustainability, resilience, cybersecurity and other qualitative factors.
In the case of public procurement, sustainability is a mandatory minimum requirement. The resilience criterion requires public purchasers to diversify their supply sources in cases of high dependency. Authorities must also consider at least one criterion from among social sustainability, cybersecurity and timely delivery obligations.
In renewable energy auctions, such as for solar or wind farms, authorities must assess the auction’s contribution to sustainability and resilience, cybersecurity, responsible business conduct and the ability to complete projects on time. These criteria must apply to at least 30% of the volume auctioned annually in each EU country or to 6 gigawatts, respectively.
The regulation also covers forms of public intervention, such as support schemes that incentivise households and businesses to purchase net-zero technology products, such as support schemes for rooftop photovoltaic installations on private homes.