Europe’s large power generators face a tougher regulatory regime, as from yesterday, with restrictions on emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide, and the start of Phase 2 of the EU Carbon Emissions Trading scheme. The UK Guardian’s Mark Milner discusses the implications for UK power generators, here.

“The EU’s large combustion plants directive (LCPD) is designed to curb emissions of sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide . . . Under the LCPD, electricity generators and some other coal-fired industrial plants had to decide whether to fit flue gas desulphurisation equipment to remove sulphur dioxide and nitrous oxide. If they have, the companies can run the plant like they did last year. If they have not fitted it - opted-out - they can run the plant for only 20,000 hours between now and 2015. Once the hours have been run, the station has to close. All opted out stations have to shut by the end of 2015, whether they have run the full hours or not.

When to run is the dilemma for producers. They could run the 20,000 hours quickly and shut down. Or they could hoard the hours, waiting until demand is high - along with higher prices.

Technorati Tags: Carbon Emissions Trading, power generators, large combustion plants directive, emissions, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide

This entry was posted on January 2nd, 2008 at 18:44 (GMT) and is filed under EC Policy, Emissions Reductions, Industry Reports, Policy . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.