Berichtspflicht nach Artikel 15b der RED III

Analyse der Potenziale im Wärmebereich

Authors: Sara Ortner, Yanik Acker, Eftim Popovski, Jan Steinbach

Under Article 15b of the amended Renewable Energy Directive (RED III), EU Member States are required to map the areas needed for the generation of energy from renewable sources by 21 May 2025 at the latest, in order to achieve their national contributions towards the EU-wide target of 42.5% renewable energy by 2030.

In doing so, Member States must take various aspects into account in accordance with the Guidance on designating renewable acceleration areas. The first step is to assess the potential of the land for renewable energy use – that is, to analyse which areas are technically and economically suitable for technologies such as wind or solar energy. Furthermore, future energy demand must be taken into account, including expected efficiency gains, system integration and load management. The availability of infrastructure, in particular electricity grids, storage solutions or their expansion potential, is also a key criterion.

For implementation, the European Commission recommends the use of digital tools, in particular Geographical Information Systems (GIS), to identify suitable areas.

The RED defines renewable energy as follows: energy from renewable, non-fossil energy sources, namely wind, sun (solar thermal and photovoltaic), geothermal energy, ambient energy, tidal, wave and other marine energy, hydropower, and energy from biomass, landfill gas, sewage sludge gas and biogas.

The aim of this analysis is to map the areas required to achieve the targets in the heating sector (specifically in heating networks). The relevant renewable heat sources for this analysis are presented in Table 1 below.