Luxembourg has just signed an historic agreement, with Lithuania: for the first time ever, EU Member States have initialled a bilateral agreement on statistical transfers of energy produced from renewable sources.

Under the terms of the national renewable energy action plan, approved by the government in 2010, Luxembourg has set itself a target of 11% of energy production from renewable and sustainable resources. As it is structurally not equipped to achieve this objective on its own, the country has counted on cooperation mechanisms to achieve this, offering the possibility for one Member State to transfer amounts of renewable energy to another Member State.

Such mechanisms are provided for in a 2009 European directive developed following the Kyoto Protocol. Since 2011, Luxembourg has started negotiations with a number of Member States that are likely to exceed their own targets for 2020 and in February 2011 a memorandum of understanding was signed by Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker and his Lithuanian counterpart Andrius Kubilius.

The agreement signed by Žygimantas Vaičiūnas, Minister of Energy of the Republic of Lithuania, and Étienne Schneider, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy of Luxembourg, is for the period 2018-2020, when Lithuania expects to surpass its target of 23% renewable energy production.

Lithuania’s contribution to Luxembourg will be primarily in the form of wind, solar and geothermal energy, and then by biomass obtained through sustainable forest management. “We are the first to show that real cooperation in the field of renewable energies is possible and benefits both the partners to the agreement and the objective pursued at European level”, asserted Prime Minister Étienne Schneider.

(Photo: SIP / Charles Caratini)

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