Overall, the 2023 report – which is the 8th edition of Energy Union reports – is divided into 3 main sections: the interplay between the Green Deal climate ambitions and EU crisis response, the progress on national energy and climate plans’ implementation and upcoming challenges. It reflects on how the energy crisis, caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was negated by the acceleration of Europe’s renewable energy capacities in the framework of REPowerEU, also mentioning the efforts on global methane abatement. However, it lists furthering energy independence as the main challenge to tackle. It was released alongside a wide range of annexes and co-reports, delving deeper into specific subtopics, such as bioenergy and climate action.
Preceding the release of the report only by a few days, on 20 October, the commission released an updated Strategic Energy Technology (SET) Plan. The original SET plan serves the Energy Union via focusing on Research, Innovation and Competitiveness. While this objective remains, the update aims to embed SET within the European Research Area (ERA) framework. In practise, this means prioritising interdisciplinarity – such as sustainability by design, digitalisation, skill developments and more – as well as expanding the scope to include all renewable technologies. In addition, the updated SET includes close cooperation with a number of industrial alliances (Battery Alliance and Clean Hydrogen Alliance amongst others) and innovation platforms. Finally, robust monitoring will be introduced through the SET Plan information system (SETIS).
