As it prepares the delegated act establishing the taxonomy for climate change mitigation and adaptation, the European Commission is said to be examining the possibility of including electricity generation from natural gas, provided certain criteria are met, according to a document published on Thursday 11 March by Euractiv.
As a reminder, the delegated act under preparation aims at defining technical selection criteria for climate change adaptation and mitigation, in order to determine which investments can be considered as “sustainable”, “transitional”or “enabling” activities, under the EU Taxonomy Regulation (2020/852).
Originally scheduled for 1 January 2021, the publication of the text was postponed on the grounds that the Commission needed more time to review the 46,000 or so contributions from stakeholders and citizens to the public consultation on the draft text launched in November 2020 (see EUROPE 12606/15).
It must be said that the subject is the subject of intensive lobbying, particularly on the treatment of gas (see EUROPE 12546/12).
Commission reversal
According to the document revealed by Euractiv, this lobbying has finally led the Commission to consider the possibility of including, in the future delegated act, new criteria for gas-fired power generation “specifically aimed at maintaining the reliability of electricity supply by contributing to the stability of the grid”.
“Stakeholder feedback has highlighted that gas-fired power generation plays an important role in guaranteeing the reliability of electricity supply by compensating for times of low generation by intermittent renewable energy generation (wind, solar) and contributing to grid stability”, the draft text says.
In concrete terms, the Commission is considering two options.
The first is to broaden the criteria for the ‘Do no significant harm’ option to recognise the role of ‘electricity generation from gaseous and liquid fuels’ in the context of ‘electricity reliability’. The condition in this case would be that the direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the activity are “less than 244 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (244gCO2 e/kWh)” or that “the life-cycle greenhouse gas yearly emissions of the activity are lower than 820kgCO2e per kW of net installed capacity”.
The second option is to create a new activity entitled ‘Generation of electricity from gaseous fuels to maintain the reliability of electricity supply and contribute to the stability of the grid’, by establishing a set of criteria to be met.
One of these is that the activity should be “associated with life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions of less than 820kgCO2e per kW of net installed capacity per year” and that the plant should allow co-firing with low-carbon gases (hydrogen, biogas). In addition, methane leaks should either be reported and eliminated during the operation of the activity or at least measured by installing adequate equipment during the construction of the activity.
Whichever option is chosen, this would be a real relaxation of the criteria originally envisaged by the Commission.
According to a draft version of the delegated act published by the Commission in November, the institution in fact provided for natural gas-fired power generation activities having to remain below an emissions threshold of 100 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour (100gCO2e/kWh) in order to be classified as “sustainable” or “transitional” investments (see EUROPE 12606/15).
This threshold was tantamount to excluding fossil fuels, including natural gas.
Member States divided
This reversal of the Commission’s position is likely to displease some Member States.
In a letter sent to the institution on Wednesday 10 March, Austria, Denmark, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg expressed their “deepest concerns about proposals coming from various Member States to increase the 100gCO2e/kWh threshold”.
“Strongly” opposing any increase in the threshold, the five countries called on the Commission “to ensure that the 100gCO2e/kWh threshold regularly declines every five years towards a level of zero by 2050, as proposed by the Technical Expert Group report” (see EUROPE 12442/14).
Finally, it should be noted that Finland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Poland also sent a separate letter to the Commission on Thursday 11 March, asking the institution to ensure that the delegated act is in line with the criteria set out in the revised EU Renewable Energy Directive (2018/2001) (RED II).
These countries consider that, in its current form, the draft delegated act introduces new criteria which go beyond those of the Directive.
“Keeping in mind the crucial role of bioenergy in Member States’ energy-mix to reach the EU climate goals we would like to strongly emphasise that all forms of solid, gaseous and liquid bioenergy fuels that are sustainable under the Renewable Energy Directive must equally be declared long-term sustainable energy sources under the delegated act on taxonomy”, they write.
See the Commission document: http://bit.ly/3lea08e and the two letters:http://bit.ly/3qHIiBy ; http://bit.ly/3rHUCmU (Original version in French by Damien Genicot with Marion Fontana)