‘Green’ energy risks being left out in the cold

Date: 20/01/2000

By Renée Cordes

As EU member states gradually open up their electricity markets to competitors, producers of wind, solar and other forms of 'green' energy fear being left out in the cold.

That is because the European Commission has yet to come forward with concrete legislative proposals for achieving its long-term goal of doubling the consumption of renewable energy to 12% of total electricity use by 2012.

"Liberalisation is all well and good but how, in the next five years, are we going to use this liberalised market as a tool for achieving environmental protection?" asks Liam Salter of the World Wide Fund for Nature.

While electricity prices have already started to come down, this has not yet carried over to the renewables sector, which in many cases cannot offer similarly competitive rates.

Energy Commissioner Loyola de Palacio had planned to come forward with a long-awaited proposal in October, but has delayed doing so to give member states a chance to express their views. A Commission spokesman said the institution now hoped to unveil new plans by February or March.

The original proposals drawn up by De Palacio's predecessor Christos Papoutsis called on governments to set national targets for domestic electricity consumption from solar and other forms of renewable energy. This was intended to be part of an overall strategy to help the EU meet the commitment it made at the 1997 Kyoto conference on climate change to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 8% to 1990 levels by 2012 at the latest.