With carbon reduction goals a long way off from being met in Europe’s transport sector, energy storage can play a key role in coupling transportation and energy technologies, the European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE) has said.
The association has just published ‘Energy storage: a key enabler for the decarbonisation of the transport sector’, a position paper on how the continent should approach many of the issues associated with the rapid roll-out of electric vehicles (EVs) and their respective charging networks.
EASE argues that transport is the only sector where EU emissions reductions efforts have lagged, actually seeing a rise in carbon emissions since 1990. Electrification is underway, but without effectively managing electricity networks to accommodate the new vehicles and ways to power them with renewables, “significant stress and costs” could be incurred by this challenge.
For several years European trade events such as Energy Storage Europe and latterly US events such as Energy Storage North America have begun recognising the necessity and opportunity of sector coupling – not only between transport and electricity/energy but also with the heating and cooling sectors. However, EASE argues that the correct or most favourable regulatory frameworks and market designs to enable this closer cohesion do not yet exist.
The group makes a raft of recommendations for the regulatory treatment of electric mobility in general, such as arguing for free market competition for contracts to build chargers and charger networks, the recognition of EVs as an eligible energy efficiency technology, and recognition of the potential for electrification of mobility to contribute to overall environmental goals.
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