Following the preparatory meetings of unions and employers the social dialogue committee met to consider future developments in the sector.
Olivier Lebois introduced the concerns of ENTSO-G , the organization of transmission system operators for the European gas sector. ENTSO-G is charged to develop the 10 year network development plan for the gas infrastructure in Europe. Issues addressed in the discussion included:
- the role of biogas
- recent developments regarding shale gas
- stranded costs of investments made in gas infrastructure
- the future role of CCS and its infrastructure, and will that be a stranded cost as well ?
A new development which is explored under the heading Power2Gas might also be that the excess electricity that is produced by renewable sources is converted to hydrogen and then stored in the gas infrastructure. Such issues are more difficult to include in the 10 year network development plan as they are based on technologies that are not proven and well developed yet. They can play a role in the future and in the reflections on the 2050 energy goals.
Beate Raabe, the new General Secretary of Eurogas presented the position on the European Energy roadmap 2050 and where the gas industry agrees and differs with the view of the Commission. Eurogas, like EPSU supports the focus on energy efficiency. Eurogas further pleads like the Commission for the substitution of high carbon fuels in power generation and transport with lower ones like gas. The gas industry is a supporter of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) facilities. The view of Eurogas differs from that of the Commission on some crucial issues. It finds that the Commission sees a too pre-dominant role for electricity in residential, services and transport sectors. In this last sector the Commission does not explore the potential for the use of natural gas. To state it sharply Eurogas argues that the Commission sees no more role for natural gas except for the back-up of electricity production. Eurogas argues this will then lead to large investments in the electricity distribution system to cope with large amounts of renewables. The other consequence is that the gas distribution and storage infrastructures will be less used hanging as stranded costs over the sector. Unions commented on different aspects including the need to explore the employment consequences and the employment potential of the Eurogas scenarios. And although the Commission has included attention to the social dimension in its Roadmap it has ignored the challenges for the industry to have skilled workers to execute various proposals.
The employers and unions are concerned about the skill issues and are involved in a project to identify which bodies in the Member States are exploring the labour market developments and how these relate to future skills. David Tarren of Syndex made a presentation and several participants provided further details of organisations involved in this type of activity.
The unions and Eurogas also considered the future developments in the sector and the implications these have for the work and representativeness of an organization like Eurogas. These discussions will continue.
The meeting was chaired by EPSU representative Didier Baur, CGT-FNME, France. EPSU delegates came from Czech Republic, France, Lithuania, Roumania, Slovakia, UK. It took place 16 April 2012, Brussels. The next meeting of the Steering Committee of the project will be 27 April and the next working group meeting will be 14 June. Presentations made at the meeting:
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