As the EU and national governments aim to use recovery from the COVID-19 crisis as a springboard for achieving ambitious new climate policy goals and building back greener, we present our annual status update on legal, policy and commercial initiatives across the European renewables sector.

The 2021 edition of Dentons' guide, "Investing in renewable energy projects in Europe", combines top-down analysis of EU and other regional trends with bottom-up reviews of developments at national level, after a year of unprecedented changes, including COVID-19, Brexit, and emergence of hydrogen as major elements of the renewables policy landscape.

At the policy level, most EU member states have now adopted national energy and climate plans that match the EU's existing 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets, but there is much to be done to deliver those plans, and even more to be done as the EU and others move to adopt tougher 2030 targets that fit in with delivering net zero goals by 2050.