Germany, Spain Warn EU on Renewables Plan
Date: 16-Jan-08
Country: BELGIUM
Author: Paul Taylor
In a letter obtained by Reuters, ministers from Berlin and Madrid objected to a draft proposal that would encourage companies to trade renewable energy produced from sources such as solar, wind and hydro-electric power as well as biomass.
Whether such a system were mandatory or voluntary, it would endanger and undermine existing systems in Europe that guarantee prices and access to power grids for renewable energy enterprises such as wind farms, they said.
"This will put a very successful development of renewables at risk, which is not acceptable to our governments," the letter to Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said.
Governments, not companies, must retain control of renewable energy policy since they were responsible for meeting binding targets intended to fight climate change, the ministers said.
Latvia, proportionately the EU's number two renewable energy producer, and EU President Slovenia both backed the letter.
The plan to meet an EU target of raising the share of renewable sources in power production to 20 percent in 2020, from 8.5 percent now, is part of a package of EU energy and climate change proposals to be unveiled on Jan. 23.
PERVERSE TOOL?
Environmental campaigners question whether allowing companies to trade renewable energy is feasible.
"We already have in Europe a successful, simple system for promoting renewables in Germany and Spain that creates stability and certainty in the market. The Commission is setting the right objective but the tool appears to be perverse," said Mahi Sideridou, Greenpeace's policy director for climate and energy.
A spokesman for Piebalgs said the Commission wanted to create a flexible mechanism that would allow member states that so wish to produce all or part of their renewable energy target in another EU country.
"This flexible mechanism is not going to put in danger existing schemes," spokesman Ferran Tarradellas Espuny said.
An EU official said the Commission's legal service was reconsidering legal aspects of the proposal, which was likely to be amended before the EU executive unveils the plan next week.
"It's really on the move now," the official said.
EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas denied in an interview with the German magazine Capital released on Tuesday that Brussels' planned moves would torpedo the so-called "feed-in" system used in Germany and Spain.
"Don't worry," Dimas said. "We will ensure that Germany can keep its system without restrictions in future and that subsidised green electricity is not bought up from abroad."
The Commission would not give up the idea of trading in renewable power certificates, "but we will construct it in such a way that it doesn't hinder national promotion systems in Germany and other countries -- that's a promise," he said.
Many national leaders have written to the Commission objecting to one or other aspect of the package. France wants to be given credit for its its huge nuclear energy programme, which emits few greenhouse gases, blamed for global warming.
Sweden wants special treatment because it already gets 40 percent of its power from renewable sources while Britain, for example, uses a mere 1.3 percent of renewable energy.
German daily Handelsblatt reported on Tuesday that the EU had assigned individual country quotas. The EU draft will set Germany a target of deriving 18 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, the Handelsblatt said, without identifying its sources.
Sweden will have a target of 50 percent, Austria will have to reach 34 percent, France 23 percent and Spain 20 percent in the same period, according to the newspaper.
Britain and Poland will be set a target of 15 percent and the Netherlands 14 percent, the newspaper said in an article to be published on Wednesday.
(Additional reporting by Sylvia Westall in Berlin; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
