Kyoto and liberalization ongoing transformation of the energy market
COGEN Europe believes that the single most important influence on the electricity sector in the future will be the policy response to climate change and that cogeneration offers one of the very best, prospects for cutting emissions in the power sector. In the EU, cogeneration was put at the head of the list of Policies and Measures laid down before Kyoto as the means of achieving its then progressive target of a 15% reduction in emissions by 2010 over 1990. COGEN Europe has estimated that EU-15 as a whole could reach a 30% cogeneration share of total electricity production by 2010. Indeed, three of the 15 countries have already reached 30% (Denmark, The Netherlands and Finland). On a conservative basis this would save 221 Mt of CO{sub 2}/yr by 2010, or 46% of the EU 15% negotiating target agreed in 1997. This also represents 30% of the 'gap' between the achievement of the 15% target and the 8% increase in emissions anticipated for 2010 in the absence of abatement measures. Most, if not all, of these savings would be based on zero or negative cost investments. COGEN Europe supports the trend towards liberalization and the European Commission's efforts to introduce competition into electricity and gas markets for the simple reason that they provide the best means to remove market and monopoly barriers to the development of high efficiency cogeneration. This paper presents a COGEN Europe vision for meeting and overcoming the challenges of global climate change - and some suggestions for governments which can help them achieve that elusive double dividend: environmental improvement and economic competitiveness. Governments should: where possible use the market to achieve your environmental objectives; avoid detailed regulation; avoid subsidizing pollution; set clear and ambitious CO{sub 2} objectives; redouble political pressure to achieve international consensus on internalization of environmental costs.
- OSTI ID:
- 20018778
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9806214-; TRN: US0001977
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Power-Gen Europe'98, Milan (IT), 06/09/1998--06/11/1998; Other Information: 1 CD-ROM. Operating Systems: Windows 3.1, '95, '98 and NT; Macintosh; and UNIX; PBD: [1998]; Related Information: In: Power-gen Europe'98, [2400] pages.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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