by Alicia Carrasco
CEO olivoENERGY
From State AID to Europe AID
Last 5th of February, I had the pleasure to attend the International Energy Policy Forum 2025 organized by Iberdrola and the Financial times. I resume the day on a headlined above: it is time to focus on Europe competitiveness. The AID refers to the need of facilitating what commonly not only brings competitiveness and energy independency to Europe as a unit, but it does use our best capabilities.
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To set up the context of the discussion, Faith Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency,ย addressed the challenges for Europe, the mistakes made and suggestions to strengthen competitiveness. ย His message was clear: less export gas, support nuclear and speed processed up.
Competitiveness of European industry and manufacturing sector are the backbone of the economy and employment and therefore are very important for the social stability.ย Is Europe at risk of losing the competitivity of the manufacturing and industrial sectors? We must consider two major challenges and way forward for each of them
- For the existing industries such as steel aluminon, chemicals, โฆenergy prices are at major risk to competitiveness as Europe prices are much higher than in China or US
- For the industries of tomorrow, like the clean energy technologies, Europe is far behind to other countries.ย
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In terms of energy policy, Europe made three strategic mistakes
- Relied in gas of Russia: increasing the reliance of the natural gas from Russia was a major mistake
- We shorten nuclear capacity without understanding the impact. Nuclear power generates less emissions and it is more competitive in the prices.ย
- Dropping solar supply: Europe, more than 20 years ago was the number one solar manufacture of the world.
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In this context, what shall we do?
- Less use of exported gas at itยดs expensive and focus on own local resources, this will bring the cost of energy down making Europe industry more competitive. always more expensive that what we can be produce here.ย If Europe does not win the competitive game, we will see social implications, and this is serious.ย
- Invest in renewable and grid, supporting industries to survie and to keep jobs alive.
- In terms of clean energy technologies. Europe should choose its battle and support solar also because of security reasons. Also, we have to focus in storage and grids.
- Speed it up. Last year Europe brought a lot of renewable energy, and they were not always connected to the grid. Licensing and permitting is taking a great amount of time. European process of permitting and license take too much.ย
- The government should support the nuclear projects, and nuclear should be part of the mix, together with solar and wind. Lifetime extension is much cheaper than building new ones.ย
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We need to understand what didnยดt work: Europe micromanagement and not put the money where our mouth is.
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What should we focus on?
We need a public sector that creates an environment to attract invest, controlling excess regulation and the difficulties that come layered governance.
The next five years are crucial. It is not about deregulation but simplication. There is opportunity europe. Use single market. We need to understand the enabling environment, high cost of energy. High taxes, high wages, high compliances brough industry to get out of Europe. Much more sophisticated valuation of cost. We need to price security and resilience. No more of it is cheaper so i buy it. We need to look at productivity. Cheaper today comes to a very expensive cost at the long term.
Commissioner of Energy and Housing, Dan Jรธrgensen, was reassuring even when other changed their mind, even our enemies, we follow our principles.
- Paying doble energy cost than China and US, creates a problem of affordability.
- Europe clean industry deal need to take into account in our soon to be published Affordability Action Plan, that it will focus towards lower energy cost recovering energy prices and addressing the not energy parts of energy bills, and make the right long term decisions for our future.
How to deliver affordable energy in the long term
The integration of EU markets already brings benefits to consumers, and there is more potential. The action plan will be our blueprint. We have to connect our energy system, grid update, renewable and electrification.
The location was a great choice as the Solvay Library represents the memory of history leading to the trust that EU Energy and Housing Commissioner referred to.
The challenges we have are huge but no new.
Letโs do it again, and letโs do it together.
