Siobhan Hall

“Bringing down energy costs for households and business will be one of the main priorities of my mandate,” he said in written responses to questions from the European Parliament ahead of his formal hearing on 5 November. High energy costs were hampering EU competitiveness and reducing support for the bloc’s

The EU agreed to give regulators this option in its electricity market design reforms adopted this year to help reduce the risk of suppliers going bankrupt during price crises like the one seen in 2022-23.

“We will tap into Europe's vast renewables potential and bring it to our industries to help them decarbonise,” she said in a video message to the Renewable Hydrogen Summit in Brussels on Thursday.

“We have to home in on the most strategic sectors,” the Frenchman told the European Parliament's energy and industry committee during his confirmation hearing – a public job interview – for the role chosen for him by EC president Ursula von der Leyen.

EU policymakers should focus instead on making trading on physical hubs easier, having longer long-term transmission rights (LTTRs) and more reasonable collateral rules to boost trading and keep transaction costs stable, lobbies Energy Traders Europe (ETE), Eurelectric and Europex said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

“If our economy depends on fossil fuels that we do not produce, we will never be able to ensure prosperity,” she told the European Parliament's energy and industry, environment and economic committees in her confirmation hearing – a public job interview – on Tuesday evening.

State guarantees could reduce such costs, which expand over longer time horizons, for contracts such as futures trading and power purchasing agreements (PPAs), it said in its latest European wholesale power market monitoring report.

The missing plans meant the EC could not assess whether the EU was on track to meet its overall targets, which included sourcing at least 42.5% of the bloc's energy from renewables by 2030, it said on Thursday.

Installed renewable power capacity in Europe had increased by more than 110 GW since last winter, mostly driven by solar photovoltaic additions, Entso-E said in its Winter Outlook 2024-2025.

Initial enthusiasm for green hydrogen projects and high expectations in Europe have been tempered in recent years by rising inflation, interrupted supply chains and elevated costs.