The Future of Energy Newsletter - Spring 2025

Brought to you by the international Energy & Utilities Sector Group at Bird & Bird

Updates from our International Network

Bird & Bird named most active clean energy legal adviser in the Clean Energy League Table 2025

International law firm Bird & Bird has been ranked the Most Active Legal Adviser in both Clean Energy Project Financing and M&A transactions, resulting in being named as one of the Most Influential Law Firms in Renewable Energy.

Read the full story

Legal Analysis of the EU's Second Renewable Hydrogen Tender

The European Hydrogen Bank (EHB) has successfully concluded its second renewable hydrogen auction, allocating €992 million in subsidies to 15 renewable hydrogen production projects. This tender, characterized by its competitive nature, saw feed-in premium tariffs ranging from €0.20/kg to €1.88/kg awarded to the selected projects. These tariffs will be added to the market price of hydrogen.

For more information please contact Sibylle Weiler.

Read the full story

Recent Planned Changes to the Finnish Electricity Market Act

In Finland, there are various changes on the way in the Ministry of Economic affairs and Employment in terms of developing different aspects of the Finnish Electricity Market Act (588/2013, as amended) (in Finnish: Sähkömarkkinalaki) (the “EMA”). As a reflection of the constantly changing energy landscape, the Energy Market Act went through a series of large-scale amendments in 2023 ranging from the promotion of security of supply to implementation of consumer rights with the transposition of the Electricity Market Directive (EU) 2019/944 into national law. Currently, the Ministry has four legislation proposals in the pipeline for further amendments to the EMA, some of which have advanced to the extent that a government proposal is available. This article provides an overview of the key changes proposed by each project and the government proposal, if available.

For more information please contact Laura Huomo and Johanna Parkkinen.

Read the full story

Poland: New Rules for Connecting to the Grid: What Businesses and Consumers Need to Know

On March 12, 2025, the Polish government presented a draft amendment to the Energy Law that represents the most extensive reform of the grid connection process in over a decade. The proposed legislation is designed to align with EU Directive 2024/1711 and Regulation 2024/1106, and also fulfills key reform milestones outlined in Poland’s National Recovery Plan (KPO). The changes will significantly affect investors, energy companies, and end users, reshaping the way energy connections and supply contracts are managed.

For more information please contact Tomasz Chabrzyk.

Read the full story

Germany: Hello distribution grid! Update on self-consumption facilities – Federal Court of Justice ruling of 13 May 2025

In November 2024, the European Court of Justice ruled on the German concept of self-consumption facilities according to Section 3 No. 24a of the Energy Industry Act (see our article on this here). Unsurprisingly, the Federal Court of Justice has now ruled that the power line systems in the residential blocks concerned do not qualify as such self-consumption facilities. Rather, the power line systems are to be classified as distribution grids. This is because they serve to transmit electricity intended for sale to end customers. They are therefore subject to the regulations applicable to distribution grids.

For more information please contact Dr. Matthias Lang and Anja Holtermann, LL.M..

Read the full story

CO2 capture & storage as an important net-zero technology: An overview of the current legal framework

The Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA Regulation EU 2024/1735), which came into force on 25 April 2024, is intended to significantly strengthen the competitiveness of EU industry.

For more information please contact Dr. Matthias Lang and Anja Holtermann, LL.M..

Read the full story

Certified Energy Savings in Hungary - You may need to redesign

Those obliged to achieve set energy savings in Hungary may be caught by surprise by the significant modifications to Hungary's Act LVII of 2015 on Energy Efficiency (“Energy Efficiency Act”) as of 12 June. Act XXV of 2025 amending the Energy Efficiency Act introduces several challenging changes for energy market participants and obligated parties in the energy efficiency obligation schemes. These amendments primarily affect the calculation of the certified energy savings (“CES”) and counting the CES towards the amount of required energy savings and create new obligations and limitations for participants.

For more information please contact Dániel Arányi and Rebeka Szopkó.

Read the full story

Flexible bottle neck: Opportunities and risks of the new regulations on flexible grid connection agreements

The success of the energy transition depends not only on the expansion of renewable energy plants, but also essentially on their connection to the electricity grid. While the number of installations is constantly breaking new records, grid expansion is often described as the bottleneck of the energy transition. Grid expansion is regularly required to be able to feed in the requested plant capacity. However, the expansion leads to delays and higher connection costs.

For more information please contact Dr. Matthias Lang and Dr. Tobias Büscher.

Read the full story

Greenwashing and competition - Spanish judgement helps define limits for green claims

The intersection of environmental concerns and competition law has become a topic of growing interest in recent years. Consumers increasingly take environmental issues into account when making purchase decisions and businesses are progressively integrating sustainability initiatives as part of their commercial strategies, aiming to portray themselves and their products or services in the ‘greenest’ light possible.

For more information please contact Candela Sotes.

Read the full story

Solar canopies on UK car parks: an innovative step along the road to net zero?

Net zero by 2050 and a decarbonised grid by 2030 are ambitious targets for the UK. Car parks present opportunities for innovative solutions to help achieve those targets.

There are around 40,000 – 50,000 private car parking sites and 20,000 council-run sites across Great Britain. These spaces offer an opportunity for renewable energy generation, providing effective use of land and a new revenue stream for owners.

For more information please contact George Matthew.

Read the full story

Turbulent Seas: Navigating Delays & Uncertainty in Dutch Offshore Wind

On 16 May 2025, the Dutch Minister of Climate Policy and Green Growth, Sophie Hermans, announced that two out of three of the planned tenders for offshore wind farm permits in the North Sea have been postponed due to deteriorating market conditions. The justified fear is that issuing all three tenders (for the development of wind farm sites IJmuiden Ver Gamma-A and -B and Nederwiek I-A) in Q4 2025 would result in a lack of suitable bidders, if any at all. Now, only the permit for Nederwiek I-A (1 GW) will be open for tenders in October 2025 (deadline: 30 October 2025, 17:00h CET).

For more information please contact Tialda Beetstra and Paul Waszink.

Read the full story

Singapore: The quest for green data centres

Part I.

The global uptick in the adoption of digital technologies and the use of artificial intelligence has spurred the demand for data centres as well as the energy demands of these data centres. Southeast Asian countries are vying to draw more investments into the data centre space. In the coming years, Singapore plans to add at least 300MW more of data centre capacity to the existing 1.4GW of combined computing capacity of more than 70 data centres in Singapore. Malaysia is seeing enormous growth in the data centre scene, attracting data centre investments including from tech giants such as Google, Nvidia and Microsoft.

Read the full story

Part II.

The government aims for data centres in Singapore to achieve a water usage effectiveness of 2.0m3/MWh or less within the next 10 years. Data centre businesses are subject to general legislation on water consumption and wastewater discharge, such as those listed below.

Read the full story

For more information please contact Sandra Seah and Genessa Chew.