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EU
Energy Policy: - Cogeneration Directive |
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Updated: July 2012 13 June 2012. The Energy Efficiency Directive was agreed between the European Parlament, Comission and Council repealing the Cogeneration Directive. Find out more information about the EED here. 19 December 2011. New Decision 2011/877/EU establishing harmonised efficiency reference values for separate production of electricity and heat in application of the Directive 2004/8/EC about cogeneration.
Amending act of the Directive 2004/8: Regulation (EC) No 219/2009 (see part 7.6 about cogeneration) adapting a number of instruments subject to the procedure referred to in Article 251 of the Treaty to Council Decision 1999/468/EC with regard to the regulatory procedure with scrutiny. Amendments and corrections
to Directive 2004/8/EC have been incorporated into the basic text.
This consolidated
version has been made just for information. November 13, 2008, the EU Commission launched two papers to promote cogeneration as part of the Energy Security and Efficiency Package & Second Strategic Energy Review. The documents are: - Decision on
detailed guidelines for electricity calculation in combined heat
and power
C(2008)7294. This guideline should finally close the
discussions on how to calculate the production of electricity
from cogeneration, a central concept in the cogeneration directive.
INFORSE Recommendation - The national implementation includes an open and participatory analysis of the national potential for high-efficiency cogeneration - The countries use the implementation of the Directive to establish stable conditions for investments in cogeneration that support an increase of cogeneration up to the full potential of high-efficiency cogeneration. - The countries set national targets for expansion of cogeneration, and include these targets in their climate and energy strategies. - Micro Combined Heat & Power stations (building-integrated CHP) should be evaluated as an efficiency measure for buildings on the same term as measures covered by the new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. - Renewable energy based CHP (RE-CHP) should not be imposed efficiency limits, i.e. must not necessarily be high-efficiency cogeneration. - Taxes of heat from CHP must not be higher than taxes of waste heat from industry or condensing power plants.
To remove current
barriers to cogeneration, Member States would need to enact the following: The Directive does not have any national targets for cogeneration and does not require the countries to support cogeneration. It is certainly a soft measure, where the value shall be seen as more focus on the benefits of cogeneration and the opportunities for national organizations to use the directive as a driver for national support for cogeneration. In connection to the Directive, the Commission puts forward a number of arguments for cogeneration, including that cogeneration plants are less vulnerable to terrorism than central power plants because they are smaller and an eventual attack will have less impacts. It is the hope of the Commission, and of many others, that the Directive will support the use and development of cogeneration in the EU accession-countries, where the widespread use of district heating is a good basis for cogeneration. When the electricity directive is introduced in the accession countries, it is important that this Directive and the renewables directive are implemented as well. This can help to avoid that the market introduction would hamper a sustainable development. One
background for the Directive is the Commission's cogeneration
strategy from 1997 with
a target of co-generation in total EU electricity production
of an increase from 9% in 1994 to 18% by 2010. That strategy has paved
the way for the proposed and now approved Directive. Read about Directive 2004/8/EC at eur-lex.europa.eu and at www.cogen.org (views of the cogeneration industry). Status After the first opinion of the EU Parliament, the EU energy ministers
agreed on a number of outstanding issues, September 9, 2003 in a common
position.
Next Steps: EC
Communications and Parliamentarian Initiative (2006-2008) With its Energy Package from January 2008, the European Commission announced
in a Communication (COM2008/11/Final) that it would issue a Decision
on detailed guidelines for the Directive on Cogeneration and a Communication
on the implementation of this same Directive in 2008-2009. On
January 31, 2008, the
European Parliament adopted an own initiative report on “An
Action Plan for Energy Efficiency, Realizing the Potential”.
Among many other requests and statements, the European Parliament
asked the Commission to consider the fact that “cogeneration
boilers are by far the most efficient, and to set minimum performance
requirements
for boilers accordingly”. In addition, Members of the European
Parliament (MEPs) urge Member States to include cogeneration in their
national energy
efficiency
plans
and
to promote the use of cogeneration. |
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