EC State Aid Guidelines Bias in Favor of Big Conventional Utilities?
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...