The energy package is intended to boost major investment in renewable energy, improve energy security in Europe and support climate change proposals. It also aims to assist Member States in meeting the 20% emissions cuts and 20% renewable energy goals that have been agreed.

Included in the review is a new 5 point action plan, the EU Energy Security and Solidarity Action Plan, which focuses on 5 areas that require further action to secure sustainable energy supplies:

• Infrastructure needs and the diversification of energy supplies
• External energy relations
• Oil and gas stocks and crisis response mechanisms
• Energy efficiency
• Making the best use of the EU's indigenous energy resources.

Read the Second Strategic Energy Review - Securing our Energy Future and all related documents on the European Commission website.

The EC press release can be viewed here.

Read the New Energy Focus report on the ECs Strategic Energy Review

Scotland welcomes the European blueprint for a North Sea Supergrid

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond welcomed the publication of the Review which identifies a North Sea Offshore Grid as an infrastructure priority. He had previously written to the EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs to ask that the case for a supergrid be included in the forthcoming Strategic Energy Review.