EURELECTRIC Conference
RENEWABLE ENERGY 2020: Opportunities and Challenges
7-8 May 2009, Hotel
Radisson Royal SAS, Brussels
Session III – New Res Directive, new business opportunities?
Hedenstrom - Videoclip
Claes Hedenstrom,
president of RECS International
(Renewable Energy Certification System), discussed how implementation of
the cooperation mechanisms provided by the new Directive will work and
what opportunities they will offer to companies. The RECS vision remains a
pan-European market for renewable energy facilitated by certificates and
Mr Hedenstrom would have liked to see the Directive set out a harmonised
EU-wide approach to RES-support. However, the new legislation has given us
a “stepwise approach”.
Some EU Member States will need to use the cooperation mechanisms to reach
their targets because they have a lack of domestic RES potential and
others will find it cheaper to cooperate across borders. However, the
‘statistical transfer’ method does not seem very promising as
surplus-to-quota RES production is very hard to predict, a government
would have to set tariffs and quotas higher than needed in order to create
a surplus for export, and waiting until 2020 for finalisation of the deal
and payment would create many uncertainties, he predicted.
Likewise joint support schemes would be hard to align with existing
schemes and make everything harder for governments to control. The joint
project approach would therefore be the “preferred option”, being easier
to add on to domestic efforts while providing access to a bigger market.
However, negotiating such arrangements could prove a slow process, warned
MR Hedenstrom.
“Joint hybrid schemes” could also be an option for countries using RES
certificates, he suggested. However, Mr Hedenstrom foresaw that a number
of countries will not be on track to meet the 2020 target, necessary
improvements to transmission grids will be delayed and the RES support
systems will cause some problems for the electricity wholesale market. He
encouraged governments to implement a Guarantee of Origin certificate
system based on the Association of Issuing Bodies (AIB) standard – which
will “bring customers into the picture” – to implement an electricity
disclosure platform based on the existing E-track standard, and to help
develop a “platform/meeting point for joint projects”.
“Renewables is a very good business to be in”, Roberto Zangrandi, Head of European Institutional Relations at the Enel group,
told the audience. He explained that the group strategy is to pursue a
balanced technology mix with a diversified geographical presence and
maintain flexibility in growth.
Annual group RES-power generation is
currently just over 79TWh. Group company Enel Green Power is “active in
all four key technologies” – hydropower, wind, geothermal and biomass,
with projects in solar power as well and dependence on incentivised
schemes is not very high. On the ten year horizon, projects in
concentrated solar power and concentrated photovoltaic energy are under
way, with wave/tidal and energy storage projects under way on a longer
horizon, he explained. Mr Zangrandi said that renewable energies shows
“excellent fundamentals” but pointed out that the “financial dynamics
differ from those of traditional power generation,” so it is vital to
“maintain contact with the financial world” in forward planning, he
underlined.
Gassner- Videoclip
Holger Gassner, Head of Markets and Political Affairs at RWE Innogy,
explained RWE’s group strategy to become – from a relatively late start -
one of the top five companies in the European RES sector. The company is
basing its approach on six pillars: climate-friendly coal power plants;
ongoing use of nuclear power; increases in renewables and in CHP; and
increases in energy efficiency and in research and development.
The
company is planning to have some 4.5GW of RES plant – windpower,
hydropower, biomass plus new technologies - in operation or construction
by 2012. It has recently acquired a North Sea offshore wind project,
Innogy Nordsee 1, with some 180 turbines of 5/6 MW creating a capacity of
960MW, for which final consent is expected by the end of the year. Mr
Gassner told the audience that in order to meet the EU target, countries
will need to expand biomass, which “enjoys favourable regulatory support”,
the challenge being to source reliable feedstock. Biogas will also be a
focus of RWE Innogy efforts, he said.
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