Great Britain has set a goal of 15% renewable energy by 2020 but at present, it has about half that. This means that it will need to go very far and very fast to meet their target, and if it fails to do so, the country will face fines from the European Union that will cost millions of pounds.
To avoid this, the British government is considering abandoning its renewable energy goal entirely, while maintaining links to European markets and preserving its ability to participate in cross-border electrical energy trading with neighbouring countries.
“Not so fast,” said the European Union because the cultural and economic ties between Great Britain and the European Union are deep. The EU also said that negotiations to unwind them may take up to 10 years to complete. The EU wants to make sure that Britain will not cherry-pick the provisions that favour it and ignore the rest.
Backing away from its renewable energy goals would put the Britain at odds with the EU nations that maintain their renewable targets as part of the membership in the region’s energy market.