Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CF SEDSS II (Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS) Phase II)
Reporting period: 2017-10-16 to 2019-08-15
Improving energy efficiency and diversifying the energy supply will enhance the resilience to security challenges and will reduce the EU’s reliance on non-EU energy sources. Being part of this effort, defence contributes to enhancing energy security and securing supply. By diversifying energy supplies, increasing the contribution from alternative energy sources and consuming less fuel by implementing energy efficiency measures, the defence will progressively reduce its exposure to energy dependency while at the same time reducing risks related to logistic support. Building on the results of the first phase (2015-2017) of the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS), the European Defence Agency (EDA) and the European Commission launched in October 2017 the second phase which finalised in August 2019. Phase II of the Consultation Forum aimed at exploring, through the engagement of experts from the defence and energy sectors, the benefits that could be enabled in support of the European Commission’s implementation of the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED), Renewable Energy Directive (RED), Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the Directive on European Critical Infrastructures (ECI). The project, in particular, explored the extent to which the EU legislation, or parts of it, could be applied to the armed forces and the wider defence sector while taking into account their own specificities. In the second phase, the Consultation Forum continued to examine how technological and regulatory progress made in energy efficiency, renewable energy and protection of critical energy infrastructures could also be successfully applied to the defence and security sector. With the support of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Energy (DG ENER) and the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME), EDA worked with EU Member States’ Ministries of Defence (MoDs) to: foster further the networking between defence and energy experts; identify bottlenecks which are preventing the defence sector from fully benefiting from sustainable energy; reduce the defence sector’s energy costs and footprint and support its transition to a more sustainable energy model; stimulate new ideas for innovative energy policies/strategies/ plans for defence; describe and generate ideas for concrete collaborative defence energy-related projects including dual-use synergies within the defence and civilian markets; identify and promote potential EU funding sources or other related and applicable funding instruments according to the legislative and administrative frameworks for supporting defence-related projects on energy efficiency, renewable energy, and energy infrastructure.
The work of the Consultation Forum Phase II was performed from mid-October 2017 until the end of July 2019 through the organisation of four plenary conferences, six coordination meetings with team leaders and moderators of the EU Member States as well as other ad-hoc experts meetings and the completion of deliverables as forecasted in the Grant Agreement. Topics covered throughout the CF SEDSS II include but are not limited to energy management, energy efficiency, renewable energy sources (RES), protection of critical energy infrastructures (PCEI) and financial considerations. Among these topics, the contributions in energy management and energy efficiency including policies, strategies, processes, roadmaps, methodologies and tools to improve energy performance constitute the framework for implementation of RES and PCEI. On the basis of such topics, reference material was generated throughout the 22-month duration of CF SEDSS II, ranging from the global strategic context for energy as well as the defence context for energy, the purpose and scope of EU energy legislation, and a selection of available delivery tools and techniques. Overall, the implementation of CF SEDSS II enabled the Agency to efficiently disseminate and communicate the project’s results to the interested bodies and practitioners to maximise their exploitation. Moreover, the Agency provided the targeted audience with the appropriate platform for sharing knowledge, expertise and good practices in energy management including energy efficiency, renewable energy sources as well as defence-related critical energy infrastructures. The outcome of the above-coordinated activities also contributed to further build a collective consciousness among the EU MoDs regarding the importance of promoting defence adaptation to a cleaner, safer, and more affordable energy model. In addition to other deliverables and dissemination/exploitation reports, the project also produced: ‘Guidance Document: CF SEDSS II Results and Recommendations for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector’; ‘Lessons Learned From the Organisation of the Second Phase of the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector and Recommendations’; and Eighteen ‘Information Sheets’, which provide an overview of the defence energy-related project ideas.
The Forum has successfully implemented its objectives with a positive impact on the efforts of the MoDs to address defence energy-related considerations and on the efforts of the EU to achieve its strategic goals on energy sustainability and energy security. Based on the feedback received from the MoDs, the Forum has enabled several ministries to develop national defence energy strategies, implement energy management systems, increase energy performance of defence building stocks, develop energy efficiency programmes and renewable energy sources projects, increase interest to address risks and vulnerabilities related to hybrid threats as well as stimulate investments in improving energy efficiency in the armed forces. The Consultation Forum confirmed to be a model of how EDA performs simultaneously its triple mission of prioritisation, support platform to capability and technology projects and central operator and interface with the Commission and other Agencies in accordance with its mission statement updated by the Long-Term Review Conclusions and Recommendations endorsed by the Ministers of Defence. As a result, the successful work of the Consultation Forum was acknowledged in the June 2019 ‘Council Conclusions on Security and Defence in the context of the EU Global Strategy’ (doc. 10048/19, par. 49), where the EU Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence welcomed all the progress achieved in the context of the Consultation Forum and invited the EU Member States, the European External Action Service (EEAS), the European Commission and EDA “to develop concrete solutions within the defence sector for safe and sustainable energy models leading to increased resilience and operational efficiency also in the context of climate change…”.