Promotion and Growth of Renewable Energy Sources and Systems (PROGRESS)

The PROGRESS project, a European study coordinated by Ecofys with contributions from four partners, was initiated to provide the European Commission, Directorate General Energy and Transport (DG TREN), with inputs for analysis of the degree of achievement of 2010 national and Community targets under the 2001 Renewable Electricity Directive. These inputs include market analysis of renewable energy sources, status quo on policies to promote renewable energy in Member States, analysis of administrative and grid barriers to promoting renewable energy sources, and analysis of the implementation of a system of Guarantee of Origin in Member States.

Additionally, a thorough assessment and in-depth analysis on the effects of a 20% RES target for the European Union was undertaken within this action based on the application of EEG's Green-X model.

PROGRESS provided inputs to the European Commission's Renewable Energy Road Map (COM(2006) 848) and the Proposal for a Directive on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable energy sources (COM(2008) 19) and are also published therein.

EEG was responsible for the assessment and in-depth analysis on the effects of a 20% RES target in terms of primary energy demand in the year 2020. Thereby, EEG's Green-X model was tailored to the requirements of the analysis and successfully applied. One main scenario and a set of sensitivity cases have been analysed to obtain a thorough understanding of the possibilities for long-term RES targets and the associated costs and benefits. The research, involving all sectors of renewable energies (i.e. electricity, heat and transport) within the European Union, concentrates on the following:

• Identification of the technology-portfolio of a 20% RES target for the sectors electricity, heat and transport - meeting criteria such as cost-effectiveness and future perspectives
• Determining the additional generation costs of 20% renewable energy
• Determining the avoided (costs of) fossil fuel use and benefits in terms of security of supply
• Calculating the avoided CO2 emissions
• Identifying the country-specific RES deployment
• Analysing the impact of the main key reference input parameters such as primary energy prices and development of energy demands on costs and benefits and the above mentioned modelling outputs.

The outcomes of this assessment served as a major input for the European Commission's Renewable Energy Roadmap (COM (2006) 848 final) and are also published therein. An update of this scenario work was also undertaken during 2007 in light of proposals for a binding 20% RES target for 2020. The updated analysis takes into account in particular:

• An extension of the geographical scope (i.e. EU-27 instead of EU-25);
• The incorporation of the agreed minimum target of 10% for biofuels; and
• The consideration of the modified definition of the overall RES target (i.e. 20% in terms final instead of primary energy demand).