The policies powering Europe's renewables integration

**Pamela Largue** (0:12)
Wind already generates around 20% of Europe's electricity and is on track to play an even greater role in delivering a secure, competitive and decarbonized energy system in the future. But reaching that future will depend on far more than installing new turbines. It requires joined-up policies, smarter grid planning, faster electrification, and above all, effective implementation. To learn more about the policies that will shape Europe's wind future and determine whether the continent will meet its ambitious renewables targets over the next decade, I speak with Vasiliki Klonari, Director of Energy System Integration at WindEurope. From the post-2030 energy framework to the electrification action plan and EU ETS review, Vasiliki explores why the next 12 to 18 months represent a defining moment for Europe's energy transition. She also highlights how integrating wind, storage, demand response, and electrification can strengthen energy security and help Europe achieve genuine strategic autonomy.
However, according to Vasiliki, it all comes down to whether Europe can be ruthlessly serious about implementation. I'm Pamela Largue, and this is the Energy Transitions Podcast.
Vasiliki, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about what is such a critical topic at this point in Europe's energy transition, which of course is wind energy, integrating wind energy and the policies that are helping or hindering that process. So perhaps we could start just by looking at the context within Europe and how much wind power is actually being generated and integrated.

**Vasiliki Klonari** (2:03)
Hi Pamela, thank you very much for the invitation and the opportunity to discuss the Energy Transitions Podcast. So wind energy already delivers today a fifth of Europe's electricity, about 20 percent, and it's on its way to half by 2050
It's actually now the second biggest source of electricity in Europe after nuclear. Europe now has just over 300 gigawatts of wind installed. About 265 is onshore and 40 is offshore, 39 actually, to be precise. Germany is by far the biggest fleet at nearly 78 gigawatts, and Spain's second at around 33 Last year alone, the industry invested 45 billion euros in new capacity, and it employs more than 440,000 people across Europe. In terms of factories, it has built 250 factories across various member states. But Europe still imports over 60% of its energy as fossil fuels. And by the way, the fuel import volume gets much higher if we include uranium for nuclear energy. Europe does not produce it. For you to understand the comparison, China's figure of fossil fuel imports is only 25%.
And the United States is actually a net exporter. And of course, that dependence is very expensive. You might have heard in just the first 44 days of the United States attack to Iran, we spent 22 billion euros extra on imported fuel. And so I think it's a great opportunity that we can discuss about these topics for context, something I would like to mention is that based on WindEurope study, a renewable space system that is driven by accelerated electrification and renewable deployment can save Europe over 330 billion euros by 2035 and up to 1.6 trillion euros by 2050
Yet electrification has been stuck at around 20% for a decade, while China is growing four times faster than ours. And this is why I would like to talk about wind energy, but more generally about energy system integration.

**Pamela Largue** (4:37)
Thank you for painting that contextual picture for us, Vasiliki. And I think, as you say, unlocking that 330 billion euros by 2035 and ensuring that electrification continues at pace, requires policies to really support, rather than hinder progress. And last week we saw so much coming from the European Commission in terms of the EU ETS review, the electrification plan. So there's a lot to talk about, but let me not get ahead of myself. Let's talk about some of the legislation that we see that is on the cards for Europe, and that is really going to impact system integration.

**Vasiliki Klonari** (5:20)
So, this is genuinely the most consequential legislative cycle for Europe's energy future for the next 10 to 15 years. And most of it lands in the next 12 to 18 months, I would say. Indeed, there are six, I would say six big files will be under discussion. The first I would mention is the post 2030 energy framework, which sets the targets for Europe's energy transition. Then the electrification action plan, which was announced about one week ago, with a proposed indicative targets of 46% electrification by 2040 This is doubling up our share of electricity in the European energy mix, and which will hopefully become a binding targets in the post 2030 framework.
Then the European grids package, of course, the EU ETS review, our carbon pricing mechanism. Something smaller, but very important, and that needs to be consistent with the other files, a new proposal on network charges and electricity taxation that will be amending part of the electricity regulation. And the last one I would like to mention is the, which is very important for our clean technology supply chains, the EU Cybersecurity Act, the revision of the act will be crucial, and I will explain later why. Alongside those that will be discussed now, of course, we also have the implementation of the Industrial Accelerator Act and the Net Zero Industry Act, and the Foreign Directed Investment Screening Rules for our supply chain.