Mott's Blog

     While the European Governments are pushing for ever higher renewable energy quotas, the total rate of renewable energy investment in Europe has flattened out.     "Experts said that investors did not have confidence in European policymakers’ support systems for renewables." EuroActive (2015). "Low-carbon energy" investment in Europe in 2015 dropped by more than half. The Guardian , March 23, 2016. European countries are in transition to support for renewable energy by reverse auctions. Renewable Energy Policy Network, " Global Stats Report: Renewable Energy 2016 ." Auctions in practice have always been problematic, producing an unpredictable amount of capacity due to limited bids and/or limited build-outs by winning bids. See Mott, " The European Commission's Mismanagementof State Aid Rules for Renewable Energy, " PowerGen Europe 2015. A group monitoring the achievement of the Eu 2020 RES targets noted when the guidelines on suppor...

Leaked information published in Poland today suggests that the PiS Government will fundamentally change the nature of renewable energy support contained in the prior government's version of the new law.  'State support in the form of a contract does not have to get the source of the most cost-effective, but the disposition by the greatest number of hours per year.  Among the defined limit at the auction they would have been performed in a specific order: the renewable energy sources for power exhibiting the best stability, but not necessarily the cheapest, and finally to the least controllable and disposable....  This means opening up  co-firing  [eg.  coal and biomass from wood], will take precedence.  Then the next blocks will be biomass and biogas, as well as clusters, also considered self-sufficient and stable systems - indicates our source close to the government sources, and knowing the draft amendment. - If a designated  pool of ene...

Never make predictions, especially about the future.                                                                          Casey Stengel By now everyone's predictions on the state of the renewable energy support system in Poland are wrong. The new government has gone back to square one and is working on an overhaul of the law passed last April. The European Commission is finalizing a decision on the green certificate program, including support for co-firing and old hydro, and - at the same time - looking into the law passed last April. It is likely that the Commission is discussing the changes in the new law with the Polish Government right now. Adding to the confusion, much of the RES that the new government in Warsaw seems to like is also problematic.      Whether by the c...

On March 16, 2016, a conference on the meaning of the European Commission's new decision on Polish green certificates as state aid and the prospects for its decision on the new RES law will be held in Warsaw. Readers of this blog already know the issues and the possible consequences. The conference will feature the leaders in the RES sector, the complainant in the case before the Commission, the Polish Government (invited), and the major utilities in Poland (invited). THE IMPACT OF STATE AID ENFORCEMENT ON POLISH RENEWABLE ENERGY ___________________________ An In-Depth Seminar on the Legal and Practical Problems Facing Polish Energy March 16, 2016   Hilton Hotel Warsaw The lack of notification and approval of the existing Green Certificate program has caused the European Commission to investigate its lawfulness and compatibility with the EU Treaty. See Case SA 37244. Major parts of the support system (co-firing ...

My speech at PowerGen 2015 in Amsterdam has gotten some substantial press  here and here. My thesis is that the large conventional utilities prevailed on the Commission to restrict renewable and distributed energy in important ways that favor their interests. This includes the requirement that everything above 500 kW be connected to the grid (restricting distributed energy on many types). The requirement that every project over 1 MW compete in an auction, where large utilities have shown historical dominance and market power (replacing guaranteed support systems that have nurtured a decentralized power model in Europe). And finally an incomprehensible provision that takes away the renewable energy classification for green energy that is stored and used later (potentially devastating to efforts to encourage the critical development of energy storage in Europe). The auction system is proven to be a "box of lose gears" that does not produce a predictable amount of renewa...

Increasingly it appears that the new law on renewable energy will not be in effect until substantially later than the latest government prediction. This is no surprise, since the government has been promising a new law within six months for the last two years.  Final approval by both houses of Parliament will go over into 2015, an election year, which will make final consensus difficult. The final figures for renewable energy production and investment for 2014 will reflect the uncertainty and doubts in the market. Perhaps the fact that investors are lined up to invest in Poland in this sector (perhaps as in no other sector) and are only blocked by the government, will leak into the elections themselves. The fact that electricity bills for everyone are higher than legally permitted by the inclusion of subsidies for co-firing and old hydro would seem to be a political liability. Much of this support does nothing to help compliance with the 2020 target, since it is either superfl...