On January 17th, the European Parliament held a plenary meeting in Strasbourg to vote the revision of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) and the Governance Regulation.

All three pieces of legislation were approved with an ample majority, after some frenetic last-minute compromises between the major political groups.

The approved texts bring a much needed, higher level of ambition, both on the overall targets – with 35% for both RES and energy efficiency- and on the specific measures. For H&C, the Renewable Energy Directive sets an adequate level of ambition with an annual increase of the RES share in H&C of 2 percentage points in the next decade. Yet, as Member States are not held to a binding target for such a critical sector and retain important flexibility and loopholes, uncertainty for renewables in heating and cooling remains. Provisions for the reporting on the completion of this objective are welcome as a bare minimum to keep Member States accountable. The Parliament’s texts, however, head in the right direction with national governments having to deploy measures to move the decarbonisation of the heating sector forward.

Both files will now be debated in trialogues between the Parliament and the Council.

Solar Heat Europe issued a joint press release, welcoming the outcome of the vote. To access it, please click here.