BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Germany and Spain have warned the European Commission that an ambitious plan to boost the use of renewable energy sources, due to be unveiled next week, could be counter-productive and wreck existing successful schemes.
By Paul Taylor
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Germany and Spain have warned the European Commission that an ambitious plan to boost the use of renewable energy sources, due to be unveiled next week, could be counter-productive and wreck existing successful schemes.
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.
!ADVERTISEMENT!"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 January 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 subsidized 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 huge nuclear energy program, 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.
(editing by William Hardy)
