Europe has decided to increase the deployment of renewables to 27 Percent of overall energy demand by 2030. The recast of the EU Renewable Energy Directive identifies reducing the cost of capital for renewable energy investments as a way to support high ambition of EU Member States in developing their renewable energy potential and hence to jointly achieve the European target. Consequently, Arti-cle 3.4 of the proposed Directive obliges the Commis-sion to create an enabling framework for reducing the cost of capital of renewable energy projects.
This paper proposes to establish an EU Renewable Energy Cost Reduction Facility (RES-CRF). It will complement and facilitate the implementation of the proposed Directive via a targeted EU-level interven-tion to reduce the cost of capital for renewable energy investments. This intervention will ensure that the dramatic declines in the costs of onshore and off-shore wind technology, and in particular for solar PV, translate into declining costs for concrete renewable energy projects all throughout the European Union.