Prior to now yr, Western Balkan governments have introduced a collection of latest gasoline pipelines, terminals and energy crops, supposedly to steer the area away from Russia.
These plans — lots of that are receiving monetary and political help from the EU and US — if applied, will hamper the area’s transition to renewables, whereas aggravating financial and safety dangers, together with these involving Russia.
Western Balkan governments have not realized a lot from the final yr through which the EU’s dependence on fossil fuels imports, primarily gasoline, turned a serious supply of instability, with international repercussions. However they aren’t the one ones.
Whereas it has but to be seen how profitable the EU is in weaning itself off Russian gasoline, its leaders are exporting its errors to a area that in 2021 consumed solely 4 % as a lot gasoline as Germany and isn’t almost as dependent because the EU on it.
EU Fee president Ursula von der Leyen, power commissioner Kadri Simson and enlargement commissioner Olivér Várhelyi frequently meet with the Azerbaijan regime to advertise elevated gasoline provides to the EU and Western Balkans.
And the European Funding Financial institution and European Financial institution for Reconstruction and Improvement look set to finance the Greece-North Macedonia gasoline interconnector, which — regardless of claims of diversification — would really vastly develop North Macedonia’s gasoline imports.
The Western Balkans’ gasoline consumption is under 4 billion cubic metres per yr, principally associated to heating and trade, with Serbia making up round 60 % of it, whereas a big a part of the area — Albania, Montenegro and Kosovo — is presently not even linked to the worldwide gasoline community.
In keeping with new analysis by World Power Monitor and Bankwatch, the introduced gasoline tasks are value greater than €3.5bn, and embody the area’s first two LNG import terminals in Montenegro and Albania, and a fleet of latest gas-fired energy crops that might dramatically enhance the area’s dependency on gasoline for electrical energy.
Fuel infrastructure would usually need to be constructed from scratch, which might be pricey and take years, thus locking within the area for many years to come back. This diverts sources from investing in power effectivity and sustainable renewables.
Photo voltaic and wind lagging
The area’s lagging photo voltaic and wind improvement to this point reveals that it’s not reasonable to anticipate that the nations will make one other transition from gasoline in the direction of renewables by 2050. The depleted budgets of those nations and the dearth of regulatory and institutional capability will not permit it.
New gasoline demand will enhance the Western Balkans’ publicity to risky gasoline costs. Given the extent of power poverty and the political sensitivity of excessive utility payments within the area, shoppers is not going to be keen or in a position to take in excessive costs for gasoline. This will likely effectively result in stranded belongings.
However even when gasoline is used, it’s doubtless that governments must subsidise it in periods of excessive costs, placing extra pressure on the nations’ restricted public budgets. They might even flip in the direction of Russia, as Russia is ready and keen, if it serves its geopolitical pursuits, to supply cheaper gasoline than Azerbaijan or LNG imports.
This all occurs at a time when it’s clear that there’s merely no area for brand spanking new fossil gasoline infrastructure.
The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Change (IPCC) report reiterates that there is no such thing as a room for brand spanking new fossil gas infrastructure globally, because the projected CO2 emissions from present infrastructure, with out extra abatement, would take us past 1.5 C temperature enhance by the top of the century.
In keeping with the IPCC, “fast and deep and, usually, instant greenhouse gasoline emissions reductions in all sectors this decade” are wanted as a way to restrict warming to 1.5°C. Fuel buildout within the Western Balkans will not be suitable with this purpose, nor with the nations’ commitments to achieve internet zero by 2050 as a part of their EU accession course of.
A number of of the proposed pipelines are accompanied by unsupported claims that they will provide renewable hydrogen sooner or later, with out offering any proof on potential sources or financial feasibility. The effectivity advantages of direct electrification in heating — fairly than hydrogen use — and the low probability that a lot renewable hydrogen will likely be obtainable within the coming many years, render this declare unconvincing.
As an alternative of funding the creation of largely new gasoline demand within the area, the EU and US can be higher off doubling down on the Western Balkans’ power transition.
One of the best ways to attain power safety within the area, that means the uninterrupted availability of power sources at an inexpensive value, whereas protecting Russia away from the area, will not be Azeri gasoline, nor LNG or another gasoline, it’s an energy-efficient financial system based mostly on sustainable types of renewable power and the electrification of the heating and transport sectors.
