EDP CEO Warns EU on Lost Urgency for Energy Security

Four years after the start of the Ukraine war, the European Union has lost the sense of urgency needed to strengthen its energy security, with bureaucracy still slowing renewable projects and preventing the bloc from cutting costly energy imports, the head of Portuguese energy group EDP said.

Miguel Stilwell d’Andrade, CEO of one of Europe’s largest renewable power producers, told Reuters companies were struggling to build wind and solar assets fast enough to replace imported fossil fuels.

“We need to invest more in networks, be much faster in terms of licensing and permitting and take out the bureaucracy,” he said.

“The pace of growth of renewables in Europe should be two, three times faster than what it is...The sense of urgency has been lost.”

Energy companies have the capital and technology to deploy renewables quickly but are hamstrung by slow approvals, he said. Projects can take four to six years to secure permits but require only 12–18 months to build, he said, adding that several member states have still not implemented European Commission proposals to shorten the approvals process to years.

“Immediately after the war in Ukraine everyone was in a war mentality. I think we’re lacking the sense of urgency and actually wanting to get things done.”

HEAVY RELIANCE STILL ON IMPORTED GAS

Stilwell d’Andrade said Europe’s heavy reliance on imported gas remains its biggest competitive disadvantage as prices are several times higher than in the United States. Europe should accelerate domestic wind, solar and battery capacity to reduce dependence on imported fuels be it Russia, the United States or anywhere else.

“Europe should have its independent energy because we’ve realized that energy can be weaponized,” he said.

In the United States, EDP has put three U.S. offshore wind projects into “hibernation-mode” due to policy uncertainty, he said.

For solar projects the company shifted its supply chain for solar panels to the U.S. from China several years ago and as a result, new U.S. tariffs had only a marginal 1% impact on its U.S. capital expenditures, he said.

In Europe, he said Iberia was emerging as the hottest market for data centres thanks to cheap renewable power, but warned that the lack of a major power interconnector between Spain and France was “embarrassing” for the continent.

On Spain’s nuclear fleet, he said EDP supported keeping the existing timetable to close reactors by 2035.

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(Reuters)