Securitization challenges and decarbonization opportunities for the EU gas market

Описание: Extraordinary circumstances related to the Russian military build-up along the Ukrainian border have exacerbated volatility in the wholesale gas markets. A demand-side recovery from the pandemic and the lack of refilling of some storage facilities have led to sustained high price levels prior to the emergence of the recent geopolitical tensions. Consequently, security of supply architecture is being revised in the hopes of achieving higher and faster storage filling and alternative gas supplies ahead of next winter. At the same time, the Fit for 55 targets indicate that the need to kick start a market in renewable and low-carbon gases and their environmental attributes has far from faded out. The REPowerEU communication has brought the penetration of these gases to the forefront given their “insourcing” characteristics in the context of an energy system which aspires to become less concentrated, and hence less prone to external events. This webinar will discuss the securitization challenges impacting the legal framework and decision-making processes for natural gas in the EU against a backdrop of precarious geopolitics through the theoretical lens of energy democracy. It will also explore the decarbonization opportunities stemming from the proposed framework on sector coupling of the revised Renewable Energy Directive and the Hydrogen and Decarbonized Gas Markets Package. It will ultimately shed light on the pertinent technologies that can enable decarbonization of the gas grid at scale.

Moderator:

Mariana Liakopoulou is a Markets and Policy Associate at the EU Liaison Office of the European Federation of Energy Traders (EFET), where she works on EU energy policy issues including Fit for 55, emissions trading, gas decarbonisation, hydrogen, guarantees of origin, and French and Greek power and gas markets. She is also a Research Fellow in Energy Security with the NATO Association of Canada, focusing on Caspian energy policy and energy market liberalisation in Southeast and Central and Eastern Europe.

Previously, she worked with the Energy Community Secretariat, the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), and the Caspian Policy Center in Washington, DC. Her work has been published by IAEE, USAEE, Natural Gas World, NATO ENSEC COE, Gulf Intelligence, and European Gas Hub. She holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and European Studies from the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Speakers:

Anne Houtman is a former Principal Advisor in the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy and former Head of the Commission’s Representation in France. During her long career at the European Commission, she held senior leadership roles across DG Energy, DG Transport, DG Internal Market, and DG Competition, including Deputy Head of Cabinet to Commission President Romano Prodi. She now teaches at Sciences Po Paris. She holds degrees in Mathematics from Université Catholique de Louvain and a PhD in Statistics from Princeton University.

Ing. Lenka Kovačovská, PhD is a former Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade of the Czech Republic, responsible for electricity and gas markets, renewables, energy efficiency, and international energy cooperation. She represented the Czech Republic at EU institutions, the International Energy Agency, and the International Energy Charter, and served on supervisory boards of gas and electricity transmission system operators. She later served as Executive Director of the Czech Gas Association and is active in eurogas and Marcogaz. She now works as an independent energy consultant.

Leonie Reins is Assistant Professor at Tilburg Law School and a member of the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology and Society (TILT). She previously conducted doctoral and postdoctoral research at KU Leuven on the regulation of energy and environmental law and has worked as a legal advisor in Brussels on energy, environmental, and climate policy. She holds an LL.M. in International, European, and Comparative Energy and Environmental Law.

Dr. Ivana Čeković is Professor of Applied Studies at the Western Serbia Academy of Applied Studies and Research Associate at the University of Belgrade. She holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and specializes in thermochemical conversion processes, renewable energy—particularly biomass and biofuels—and environmental protection. She previously worked at the Florence School of Regulation, contributing to research on energy system integration, sector coupling, and hydrogen technologies.