Felix Kaminski and Carys Richards from Generation Climate Europe (GCE) met with Stephanie Bätjer, the Senior Manager in Communication at the Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) to talk about the collaboration between environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Transmission System Operators (TSOs). As part of the Interlinked campaign, they discussed how this contributes to aligning SDG7: Affordable and Clean Energy with SDG13: Climate Action. Interlinked aims to raise awareness of the connections between SDG13 (Climate Action) and the other 16 goals covered in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Felix Kaminski: It’s pretty unusual that civil society and businesses come together to form a coalition. How does the partnership of NGOs and TSOs help to accelerate the energy transition?
Stephanie Bätjer: Both NGOs and TSOs have an interest in a successful energy transition. First of all, both types of organisations are populated with people who think this is an important issue, and then, on the NGO side, there has long been a realisation that climate protection via a switch to renewables is dependent on grids among other things. TSOs, on the other hand, have a political mandate to provide the infrastructure for a renewable-based energy system.
Before RGI was founded, NGOs and TSOs were often on opposing sides of grid projects because of environmental concerns surrounding invasive infrastructure. But, we’ve learned that it makes more sense to work together and consult each other when new infrastructure is being built because both sides come with relevant knowledge and experience. If this knowledge is pooled together as early as possible, we are much more likely to end up with energy infrastructure and a system that respects nature and people’s concerns. As a result, NGOs are often now working alongside TSOs and function as supporters of projects that can help create a renewables-based system.
We have a culture of talking to each other, and the supportive relationship we have nowadays can speed up the timeline of grid projects, which serves everyone’s interests and accelerates a successful energy transition.
Felix: It’s interesting that you mention that NGOs and TSOs were traditionally on opposing sides. How were you able to build trust between both sides in the beginning? Who made the first step, and how was RGI born?
Stephanie: Our CEO Antonella Battaglini, the founder of RGI, realised how big the overlaps in interests were between TSOs and NGOs and that it would make a lot of sense for them to work together. In 2009, a window of opportunity opened when the EU’s third Energy Package came into force, and with this ownership of generation sites and transmission networks were unbundled, so TSOs became more independent actors and had a chance to reinvent themselves.
Around the same time, the “20-20-20 targets” (Annotation by GCE: 20% increase in energy efficiency, 20% reduction of CO2 emissions, and 20% renewables by 2020) led to the development of new energy infrastructure. This was desirable to many environmental NGOs, who increasingly realised that grids were needed to reach our climate targets. It was at this point that Antonella started to talk to both NGOs and TSOs and quickly built up a founding group of 4 Members that has steadily grown since then. Today, RGI is made up of 24 organisations from across Europe.
In terms of building trust, we had to take baby steps. We started by giving ourselves a set of guidelines that we call the European Grid Declaration. In it, all of the Members, and some external supports, agree to certain principles of grid development connected to environmental protection and stakeholder engagement. Once everyone was comfortable with the theory of how we wanted to work together, we took the next steps of actually implementing these principles in practice. By now, we have come even further and are working on creating long term trusted project-based partnerships in several European countries. For example, we have set up a bird strike portal in Germany that collects information on bird strikes, and we use this information to make power lines safer and more sustainable.
By working together very closely, trust has grown quite considerably over the last few years, and it takes continuous work and dedication from all sides to keep it up.
Carys Richards: Have the SDGs informed the work of RGI? Is it a positive outcome that you are supporting the SDGs or more of an active decision that was taken?
Stephanie: I’m not sure if it was an active decision we took, the reasons that the SDGs exist are the same reasons, broadly speaking, why we exist. We want to create a better, more just tomorrow where we have a stable climate, where everyone has the same access to affordable and clean energy. We are advocating for a just energy transition that reflects people’s concerns, creates local value and biodiversity gains, and increases energy efficiency and renewables to cover future electricity needs in line with the climate targets of the Paris Climate Accord.
Felix: Sometimes, new planned power lines go along with some opposition against it from people living nearby. We suppose that it is useful for TSOs to have NGOs on their side supporting the importance of a project for the energy transition. From the other perspective, what’s the value for NGOs if they jointly advocate for these lines as this may go along with opposition towards their organisation. Has this happened in the past?
Stephanie: As I said before, NGOs have recognised the value of building grids for the energy transition. They support those grid projects needed to transport renewable energy to consumption centres and build an integrated system that allows a renewables-based energy market and system as soon as possible. Having the necessary infrastructure in place to achieve our climate targets is their motivation.
NGOs have a trusted voice that people listen to and believe. When NGOs support a grid project and accompany the environmental assessment, trust in the project often grows since NGO are perceived as an unbiased party with no financial interest in the line. People have that same trust in grid operators less often because they suspect that economic considerations could be the main driver behind building new grids, not the advancement of the energy transition.
But not everyone reacts like this. As you rightly point out, sometimes the NGOs’ motivation can be questioned. One of our founding Members had a decline in membership when they first joined RGI. There is this mistrust against NGOs cooperating with industry in general. But that is not our dominating experience. If NGO support stands on solid reasons, does not shy away from challenging aspects of the process and is thoroughly and transparently explained, people perceive NGOs as the independent and critical voices they are. It doesn’t always mean that this leads to everyone being fully on board with a grid project, but trust in the environmental assessment and relevance for the energy transition grows.
Carys: In the next ten years, what do you hope the contribution of RGI will be to advance the energy transition?
Stephanie: What we do is to constantly share best practices from all across Europe and the world. Through that, we hope to help everyone grow and motivate everyone to evolve their practices. This will hopefully contribute to bringing us closer to a renewables-based system. We intend to set up a successful stakeholder dialogue forum for all European seas where we work together on the least possible invasive way to harvest energy offshore.
Additionally, we want to advocate even more for integrated spatial planning which brings generation and transmission planning closer together. We could save a lot of time and space if we think everything together in an intelligent way from the beginning.
And finally, an ambition of ours has always been and will continue to be to focus on the needed implementation of climate and energy policies that will make a renewable-based world possible. To find out more, please visit https://renewables-grid.eu.