Isra-Mart srl : EU projects vie for carbon funding

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Isra-Mart news:

EU member states have put forward 78 large-scale renewable energy and carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects to compete for funds from the EU’s NER 300 programme.
The NER 300 programme will be funded by the sale of 300 million carbon allowances from the EU emissions trading system (ETS)’s New Entrants Reserve (NER) - a quantity of allowances set aside for newly built installations. The allowances are worth about €5 billion ($7 billion) at the current carbon price and the European Commission expects the scheme to leverage around the same amount from private sources.

According to an initial screening of the projects by the European Investment Bank (EIB), member states have submitted applications for 13 CCS projects and 65 projects involving innovative renewable energy technologies.

The majority of projects in the latter category are based on bioenergy technology, with the wind sector trailing in second position. The NER 300 programme aims to fund at least eight CCS and at least 34 innovative renewable energy demonstration sites.

The EIB has begun its financial and technical due diligence assessments of the dossiers, which it aims to conclude by February 2012. The Commission will then present the bank’s recommendations to the EU climate change committee, on which all member states are represented, before announcing the final list of chosen projects in the second half of next year. At least one project and up to a maximum of three will be funded per member state.

The UK government has submitted 12 applications – seven CCS and five renewables projects – for consideration by the EIB. The renewables proposals are focused mainly on harnessing wave and tidal power off the coast of Scotland. UK energy Minister Charles Hendry said he was “very encouraged by the strength and breadth of the UK applications for this round of NER funding, with all the projects received by DECC [the Department of Energy and Climate Change] meeting the eligibility criteria”.