Closing the digital skills gap is vital for Green Deal success says Van Stiphout

A pan-European level playing field is vital to enable greater digitalisation of the energy sector, according to Mark van Stiphout, Deputy Head of Unit in DG Energy at the European Commission.

In an exclusive interview at European Sustainable Energy Week in Brussels, he highlighted the Commission's energy success stories: "The Green Deal and almost all of the Fit For 55 proposals have been agreed.

"We recently had an agreement on a renewable energy directive with member states agreeing that by 2030 we should have 42.5% of renewables in the energy system."

He noted, however, that the real hard work has now begun to implement and achieve the policies' objectives.

Digitalisation: country rollout & policy

According to Van Stiphout, digitalisation is going to play an important role in achieving these goals. There have been noticeable differences, he said, between countries' digitalisation agenda for the energy sector, with the early movers including Portugal, Denmark and Estonia.

The Commission published a Digitalisation of Energy Action Plan in October 2022 and one of the aims is that all countries move at the same digitalisation pace.

To ensure this digitalisation uptake, the Commission is focusing on creating a European data space. Van Stiphout added that a Data for Energy working group has also been established to discuss with stakeholders and member states how this data space can be created.

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Skills gap

However, Van Stiphout said that there is a shortage of skills that might hold back the EU from achieving its Green Deal objectives.

To deal with this problem, he said that the Commission is looking to attract talented youth with the necessary skills, especially in the field of network operators.

"We see more and more that the real enabling factor to make all this [the energy transition targets and policies] happen is in the networks and the grids. I hope that this also translates into attracting talented youth to come and work and contribute to digitising the grid."

What's next for the grid? To find out more, watch the full interview with Mark van Stiphout at European Sustainable Energy Week, where he discusses what is needed to digitise the grid and what the European Commission's plans are in their last year.