The Netherlands agreed on Friday (19 June) to pay Denmark 100 million euro as part of an arrangement that will allow the Dutch government to declare at least 8 TWh of Danish surplus renewable power on its books, in an effort to meet its EU target, according to Euractiv.com.

According to a recent EU stocktake of clean energy deployment across Europe, the Netherlands is among the worst performers when it comes to hitting country-specific benchmarks for 2020.

The Dutch are supposed to reach 14% renewables capacity by the end of the year but Eurostat data for 2018 – the last year for which statistics are available – shows that only 7.4% of gross final energy consumption is from clean power sources.

Its government confirmed last week that biomass, hydropower, solar and wind projects in the immediate pipeline will not be enough to bridge that gap, therefore signing an agreement with Denmark that should help avoid millions of euros in penalties.

“I found that despite all additional efforts and the acceleration in the roll-out of renewable energy, the target is not expected to be achieved in 2020,” Minister for Climate Eric Wiebes said in a letter addressed to the Dutch parliament.

Countries that lag behind can resort to creative climate accountancy to hit their targets, known as statistical transfers.