Select Committee on European Scrutiny Thirty-First Report


PROMOTION OF ELECTRICITY FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES


(21349)
9312/00
COM(00) 279

Draft Council Directive on the promotion of electricity from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market.



Legal base: Article 95 EC; co-decision; qualified majority voting
Department: Trade and Industry
Basis of consideration: Minister's letter of 22 November 2000
Previous Committee Report: HC 23-xxvi (1999-2000), paragraph 2 (26 July 2000), and HC 23-xxix (1999-2000), paragraph 3 (15 November 2000)
To be discussed in Council: 6 December 2000
Committee's assessment: Legally and politically important
Committee's decision: Cleared

Background

13.1  The Commission regards the promotion of renewable sources of energy as a high Community priority, not least because of the "substantial contribution" which it says such measures can make towards meeting the Community's Kyoto commitments to reduce greenhouse gases. Its November 1997 White Paper[36] set out a Community strategy and action plan in this area, which suggested that, in the Community as a whole, 12% of the gross inland energy consumption should be met in this way by 2010, a figure which, in terms of renewable energy sources for electricity consumption alone (RES-E), is equivalent to 22.1%.

13.2  In May 2000, the Commission proposed a draft Directive setting out ways in which this aim might be achieved. Although it had considered setting binding RES-E[37] targets for all Member States, it had concluded that there were good arguments for allowing Member States to identify the strategy best suited to their own climate change commitments, so long as the proposed Directive was able to provide the necessary framework. In the case of the UK, the indicative target suggested by the Commission was 10%, compared with the Community average of 22.1%. The proposal also dealt with a number of other issues arising from the central aim of the Directive. These are summarised in paragraphs 1.4-1.7 of our Report of 15 November 2000, and cover such questions as the incentives towards RES-E use, guarantees of origin, administrative and planning procedures, and grid connection.

13.3  Our earlier Reports noted that, in her Explanatory Memorandum of 7 July 2000, the Minister for Energy and Competitiveness in Europe at the Department of Trade and Industry (the Rt. Hon. Helen Liddell) had said that the promotion of renewable energy sources was a high priority for the Government, and that it supports the general thrust of the proposal to promote renewables in the single electricity market. However, this support was subject to clarification on a number of points of concern, including the exclusion from the Commission's definition of renewable sources of electricity of municipal solid waste and landfill (which is likely by 2010 to account for one-third of the UK's electricity from renewables).

13.4  The Minister subsequently wrote to us on 18 October, saying that, as a result of discussions at official level in Brussels, a text had emerged which, in her view, was an improvement on the Commission's original proposal in a number of respects. The Minister also said that she had asked her officials to keep us informed of all new working texts of the proposal as they emerged, and we have since received a number of such texts. It appears from the latest of these that the definition of renewable energy source for the purposes of this measure now includes landfill gas and "the organic fraction of municipal waste", thus allowing electricity from these sources to be counted towards the UK's 10% RES-E target.

13.5  In the conclusion to our Report of 15 November 2000, we commented that it seemed that the UK's earlier concerns had now largely been met. However, we said that, before clearing the proposal, we needed further clarification on how significant the restriction of the definition of renewable energy source to the biodegradable fraction of the industrial and municipal waste would be in terms of the UK's ability to meet its indicative target of 10%.

Minister's letter of 22 November 2000

13.6  In her letter of 22 November 2000, the Minister says that the restriction referred to might reduce the contribution available from waste by one quarter to one fifth, but that this would represent a much smaller fraction of the total 10% target, as waste is only one of a range of sources which will contribute. She does not consider this to be significant, particularly as the national targets laid down in the Directive would not be mandatory.

Conclusion

13.7  We are grateful to the Minister for this further clarification, and are now clearing the document.


36  (18762) 5140/98; HC 155-xviii (1997-98), paragraph 2 (25 February 1998) and Official Report, European Standing Committee B, 1 April 1998. Back

37  Defined for the purposes of this Directive as electricity generated from renewable non-fossil fuels, and notably "wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal, hydroelectric installations with a capacity below 10 MW and biomass". Biomass is defined as products from agriculture and forestry, vegetable waste from agriculture, forestry and the food production industry, untreated wood waste and cork waste. Back


 
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