Page 79 - European Energy Innovation - Summer 2015 publication

mer 2015 European Energy Innovation 79

PORTUGAL

Switch the Green Energy on

By Jorge Moreira da Silva, Portuguese Minister of Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy (pictured)

Can you imagine your
daily routines done
with clean energy?
Since you wake up to
the end of the day, everything can
be powered with green energy!
Portugal already started to shoot
some frames of this green picture:
last year we reached 62% share of
renewable energy on electricity
and our energy dependence
reached the lowest level in 20
years.

But we want more! Our houses
must have water warmed by solar
panels, our vehicles should be
electric and charged at home
during the night, and all the plugs
should be a green and clean
connection to energy. In a few
years, this will can be a reality. In
Portugal the crisis was not taken
as a pretext do delay action. It was
taken as an additional reason to
lead on energy and environment
reforms, mainstreaming green
growth on the national strategy
for competitiveness and jobs.
At the same time we launched a
new strategy to foster renewable
energy, smart grids and energy
efficiency and we also cut
excessive rents on electricity
production showing that it is
possible to address both more
renewable energy production and
tariff debt elimination.

To boost these structural
reforms we created the Green
Taxation Reform (GTR), based
on the assumption of fiscal
neutrality and to foster a

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