A new Recommendation names the permitting delays, accounting rules, and creditworthiness barriers that keep long-term clean energy contracts concentrated among large tech firms and mature markets, and acknowledges, quietly, that nuclear power purchase agreements are within its scope
The European Commission published a Recommendation on April 24th, 2026 addressing the barriers that are slowing corporate uptake of energy purchase agreements across the EU. The market has grown substantially, with contracted volumes quadrupling between 2020 and 2024, from 7.4 TWh to 31.4 TWh per year, and the number of agreements growing from 60 to 276. This being said, growth has concentrated in thirteen member states and is dominated by large technology companies, which account for more than 40 per cent of contracted electricity. The Recommendation updates a 2022 predecessor and extends its scope beyond electricity to cover long-term contracts for green hydrogen, renewable heating and cooling, and biomethane.
The reccommendation identifies two elements that obstruct correct free market mechanisms in the electric field. Regulatory barriers include accounting rules that can impose balance-sheet liabilities on corporate offtakers, variation in how guarantees of origin interact with national sustainability frameworks, and slow permitting that limits the pipeline of projects available to sign PPAs against. Non-regulatory barriers include creditworthiness requirements from large generators that effectively exclude small and medium-sized enterprises, and a lack of market transparency that prevents smaller buyers from finding counterparties. The Commission recommends that member states consider aggregation frameworks allowing multiple smaller offtakers to pool demand, and that public bodies, which have made very limited use of PPAs despite being legally permitted to do so, actively procure renewable electricity through long-term contracts.
The Recommendation contains a notable acknowledgment, that nuclear power purchase agreements fall within the definition of a PPA under Article 2(77) of Regulation (EU) 2019/943, provided they are concluded on a market basis. This is the first time a Commission soft-law instrument on the PPA market has said so explicitly. For member states with active nuclear programmes and several developing new-build capacity, the clarification opens a formal basis for a nuclear PPA market alongside the renewable segment.
The Recommendation is not binding, so Member states are not legally required to act on its guidance and there is no enforcement mechanism. Its value lies in framing Commission expectations and providing a reference point for the annual assessments ACER conducts under the Electricity Regulation. The harder obligations will follow from full transposition of the revised Renewable Energy Directive, which several member states have not yet completed.
