Brussels, 14/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 13 April, the environmentalist NGO Greenpeace denounced the shortcomings in the Commission's preliminary findings on electricity capacity mechanisms. It also criticised the support given to new subsidies for obsolete electricity plants.
The report on the Commission's preliminary findings of its inquiry into public funding schemes for power plants, known as "capacity mechanisms" will be published by the end of the year (see EUROPE 11531). Greenpeace criticised the fact that this, "seriously flawed analysis backs these subsidies, which use taxpayers' money to keep uneconomical power plants active".
Greenpeace deplored the fact that "Europe's energy market is choked with polluting coal, nuclear and gas plants that need to go. It is hard to understand why the Commission does not see renewables and flexible demand as a solution to Europe's overcapacity problem, and instead backs capacity mechanisms that further pervert the energy market".
Greenpeace explained that there are too many obsolete power plants in Europe. Their overproduction forces wholesale electricity prices to rock bottom, slashing the income of big energy companies. European governments set up capacity mechanisms to allow the same companies to keep their old power plants running, under the false claim that these plants are necessary to guarantee steady energy supplies. For example, in the past two years the UK has already awarded €2.2 billion to fossil fuel and nuclear plants.
The NGO argued that the Commission's analysis fails to properly justify the need for these subsidies and dismisses greener alternatives and that "Instead of subsidising ailing fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, Europe should prioritise flexible energy use by consumers, tap into renewables that can be turned on and off when needed and create better links between energy markets". (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)