The European Commission (EC) on Monday gave the green line to four renewable energy support schemes in France and also approved Danish plans to partially compensate more energy intensive users for the levy to back renewables.
FRANCE
The French authorities seek to grant a feed-in tariff (FiT) or a top-up payment to four types of renewable energy installations, including geothermal power plants, facilities with capacities of less than 500 kW that produce biogas from agricultural residues and organic waste, hydroelectric plants of less than 1 MW, and wind farms that have submitted a complete aid application in 2016.
The commission confirmed that these four schemes, with an estimated budget of EUR 7.68 billion (USD 8.16bn) until 2042, are in line with EU State aid rules and will not distort competition unduly. They will boost renewables production capacity by about 2,148 MW.
The schemes are funded from the earmarked Energy Transition account, which will be financed from January 1, 2017 by a share of the local tax on coal, brown coal and coke and a portion of the proceeds of the domestic tax on the consumption of petroleum and similar products.
The EC noted that only installations of less than 500 kW will be eligible for FiTs, while larger ones will sell their output on the market and get a premium on top of the market price. The commission also mentioned that the number of French geothermal projects is too limited to launch a dedicated auction.
“These measures encourage investment in non-polluting production capacities while avoiding undue burdens on the end consumer. This is a very important balance for Europe in the pursuit of our environmental objectives,” said Margrethe Vestager, commissioner responsible for competition policy.
France has pledged to invest around EUR 49 million in interconnection projects in order to address any potential discrimination against renewables from abroad.
DENMARK
Meanwhile, the EC has cleared Denmark’s plans to extend the scope of reductions to energy-intensive users when it comes to contributions levied on electricity consumption in support of renewables. The reductions concern a number of manufacturing sectors and four horticulture sectors and are intended to help maintain their global competitiveness.
Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!
European Commission. Author: Sébastien Bertrand. License: Creative Commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic.
