The requirements on industrial emissions put forward by the European Commission in its proposal of December 2007 to update the EU Integrated Pollution Prevention & Control (IPPC) Directive would have severe impacts on the electricity industry and may jeopardise supply security, a EURELECTRIC policy paper published on 10 April points out. The paper expresses grave concern on both the timing and technical basis of the proposals.
The objective of the original 1997 IPPC Directive and related legislation on industrial emissions is to minimise pollution from various industrial sources in the EU. After a two-year review process with stakeholders to examine how the legislation could be improved, the Commission tabled on 21 December proposals for a recast of seven existing directives.
The electricity industry as represented by Eurelectric supports the basic aim of preventing or minimising environmental pollution and the sector is already on a trajectory of emissions reduction as a result of significant investments being made to ensure compliance with the current legislative environment, as the recently published Eurelectric Environmental Statistics Report shows.
Moreover, actions which the electricity industry is now taking as a consequence of the last revision of the IPPC Directive plus other Directives currently being discussed by the legislators (on Emissions Trading, Renewable Energies and National Emissions Ceilings) will cut emissions even further.
Given that the existing IPPC Directive has been in full force only since last October, and electricity companies require some degree of regulatory certainty if they are to invest with confidence in long-lived infrastructure, Eurelectric argues that it is essential that the IPPC Directive should play its part in optimising the timing of these investments. It is particularly important to avoid premature closing of plants prior to anticipated new “clean capacity” coming on stream, a situation which could lead to concerns over electricity supply security. Theelectricity industry is therefore calling on the EU legislators to delay the implementation date from 2016 to 2020.
A major area of concern relates to the use of the emission values set out in the EU Best Available Techniques Reference (BREFs) guidance documents as legally binding emissions target values.
Eurelectric experts argue strongly that such application is contrary to the context in which the BREFs were drawn up and therefore this use is inappropriate. The paper suggests that if the Commission wishes to develop mandatory guidance on emissions limits, this must be achieved by means of a completely transparent procedure in which industry experts are fully consulted and the variety of operational regimes and plant designs is fully addressed.
The European Parliament’s Environment Committee is scheduled to debate the proposed Directive in late May. Eurelectric considers it vital that the official rapporteur, Holger Krahmer MEP, and his parliamentary colleagues take account of these industry concerns in the run-up to the Committee’s finalisation of its legislative report.
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