'Green' electricity: Too early for single EU support scheme, says Commission 

Transparent, non-discriminatory grid access to electricity produced from renewable energy sources must be ensured and administrative barriers to their development lifted, the Commission told member states on Wednesday (7 December).

"More than half of the EU member states are not giving enough support to green electricity," the Commission concluded as it published its second progress report on national support mechanisms for 'green' electricity in the EU.

However, the EU executive's assessment of national support schemes concludes that it would be "premature to propose a harmonised European support scheme" for renewable electricity as of yet. Competing national schemes, it argues, "can be healthy in a transitional period, as more experience needs to be gained".

The report found that "feed-in tariffs, which are fixed prices for green electricity and used in the majority of member states, are currently in general cheaper and more effective than so called quota systems, especially in the case of wind energy".

But the electricity grid is still not adapted to 'green' electricity, the Commission points out. "Grid infrastructure development should be undertaken, with the associated costs covered by grid operators," it said.

"Governments need to step up efforts to cooperate among themselves and optimise their support schemes as well as to remove administrative and grid barriers for green electricity," the Commission recommended.

Mechtild Rothe MEP (PES, Germany) agreed with the Commission that a harmonised support mechanism for electricity produced from renewables would be premature. "Any other decision would have had dramatically negative impacts for the further deployment of renewables," said Rothe who is also President of EUFORES, the European Forum for Renewable Energy Sources. But Rothe described as "counterproductive" the Commission's plans to review the need for harmonisation again in 2007. "We rather would like to see new binding and ambitious targets for 2020 as the European Parliament already called for," Rothe said.

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) found the Commission recommendations on grid access and administrative barriers in the member states "spot on". However, it found the Commission's 2007 review as "pointless" as it believes harmonisation would not allow countries to fine tune the schemes they have developed in the last few years.

The European Renewable Energy Council (EREC) also sees the administrative barriers and grid issues as "crucial barriers to further renewables development". "This is partly a problem of member states that have not fully implemented the directive in its spirit, but only in its letters," said EREC Policy Director Oliver Schäfer. EREC too said it does not find the 2007 review necessary. "why do they send out this confusing message? What kind of new findings do they expect within not even two years?," asked Schäfer.

Greenpeace said it does not support harmonised national support scheme either. "Wind turbines in the UK would need less support than in the Czech Republic, for example, and solar power fewer incentives in Greece than in Germany. At the same time, we must avoid heading towards a situation where renewable energy types are concentrated in certain regions," said Frauke Thies, renewable energy policy campaigner, at Greenpeace. Thies also welcomed the Commission's call for targets to be set for 2020. ""Ambitious and mandatory targets for 2020 of 25% renewable energy, coupled with efficiency measures, need to be agreed as soon as possible, to demonstrate national and EU commitment to clean energy," Thies said.

Electricity grid operators did not immediately react to the Commission report. However, in a position paper dated March 2005, the European Transmission System Operators (ETSO) highlighted that integrating renewable energy sources in the electricity grid is "a complex issue embracing grid extension and system stability requirements, balancing mechanisms development and their overall impact on cross border electricity transits".

At the time, ETSO said further analysis was needed to assess the impact of renewable electricity on security of supply and on the influence that non-harmonised support schemes have on their integration in the electricity grid.

Eurelectric, the union of the European electric industry, did not immediately react either. However, in a November 2004 position paper, Eurelectric anticipated the Commission's 2005 review as being "extremely important". In the paper, Eurelectric said it "strongly favours" convergence of national support schemes for renewables "and even harmonisation […] in order to contribute to the creation of a level playing-field in the European electricity market."