What’s the news? Widespread changes may be in store for the European electricity sector in the coming months, with confirmation coming in recent days that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen and a host of EU governments are backing a comprehensive review of how power prices are set in the bloc. President von der Leyen confirmed in a speech last week that the Commission is “working on an emergency intervention and a structural reform of the electricity market.” This comes amid soaring electricity prices in recent months, following on from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The 1st of October 2021 saw an important change come into effect in the German power generation sector, with the introduction of a new congestion management system, labelled Redispatch 2.0. As the country undergoes a transition away from nuclear and coal-powered generation towards more renewable sources, new challenges have undoubtedly emerged in the area of managing transmission capacity levels on German grids. Given the fact that these new sources of energy are smaller, more intermittent, and more dispersed, new measures were needed to optimize grid stability in the country. The core changes effected by Redispatch 2.0 are new requirements surrounding data exchange between grid operators and market participants, the lowering of the threshold for units to be obligatorily available for redispatch from 10 MW to 100 kW, and new treatment of EinsMan (curtailed) volumes in terms of payment to producers.

With the dust now settled on a fascinating WindEurope 2022 conference in Bilbao this month, Streem’s Commercial Manager Eoin Ferry discusses some of the major topics that generated excitement during the conference.

Here at Streem we are delighted to announce that last week, the Streem Energy web-platform has been awarded the Solar Impulse Foundation’s Efficient Solution Label! Read on for some background information on Solar Impulse and the Efficient Solution Label, and what this means for us as a company.

It has been a tumultuous few months for the German energy sector, as Russia’s war on Ukraine continues to cause ripples in energy security and supply across Europe. Nevertheless the federal government has taken steps this summer to continue the progress it has made in recent years on renewable energy, with the passing of a new version of the country’s well-known Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (EEG), or Renewable Energy Sources Act. The new Act came into force on the 30th of July, having been delayed due to last year’s federal elections. While some of the provisions are effective immediately, the majority will apply from January 2023, giving the German energy sector time to prepare for some quite impactful changes.

The perspectives of the suspension of the cap are becoming clearer. There has been some interesting news in the French renewable energy sector this week, as the Commission de régulation de l'énergie (CRE) published its recent recommendations that arose from its recent discussions on the current energy crisis, with some important news for French renewable energy producers.