De Palacio forced to revise renewables plan

Date: 11/11/1999

By Renée Cordes

ENERGY Commissioner Loyola de Palacio has been forced to go back to the drawing board before launching plans aimed at boosting renewable energy consumption.

De Palacio had hoped to unveil her proposals earlier this month but ran into fierce opposition from Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström, who insisted that the draft plan did not go far enough.

The initial proposals drawn up by energy officials called on governments to set national targets for domestic electricity consumption from solar and other forms of renewable energy. These would contribute towards the Union's overall objective of doubling the share of renewable energy to 12&percent; of total EU energy use by 2010, as proposed by the previous Commission.

However, De Palacio shied away from recommending specific targets for individual member states, arguing that it should be left to each government to set its own goals. Her plan also focused on the need to ensure that measures designed to boost renewables do not conflict with those seeking to promote a properly functioning single electricity market.

This sparked protests from Wallström, who argued that the proposals would do little to promote cleaner energy.

“Our main concern is to make sure that the commitments we have on climate change are not in any way compromised by this proposal, which is coming more from the internal market angle,” said a spokeswoman for Wallström.

The Environment Commissioner also fears that without binding national targets, the proposals would do little to encourage greater consumption of renewable energy.

As a result, argue her officials, the Union would have difficulty fulfilling the promise it made at the 1997 Kyoto climate change conference to cut emissions of six greenhouse cases to 8&percent; below 1990 levels by 2012 at the latest.

There are also concerns about classifying biomass - a kind of energy generated by waste incineration - and all forms of hydroelectric power as renewable energy, as suggested in De Palacio's original proposals, as both have been linked to environmental problems.

Under the Energy Commissioner's original proposals, member states would be allowed to pay direct subsidies to domestic producers of electricity generated from renewable sources without having to extend similar benefits to foreign firms.

But these subsidy schemes would have to be made available to outside companies once the level of renewable-generated electricity benefiting from direct price support reached 5&percent; of domestic consumption or by 2010, depending which came first.

A spokesman for De Palacio said her revised proposals were due to be discussed by the full Commission next Wednesday (17 November), although he refused to give details of what changes were being made to the text ahead of that meeting.