Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
With regard to biomass, energy production is quite competitive in countries
where agricultural and forestry waste are available at low cost. Energy from bio-
mass varies from mature technologies to new technologies that have not yet been
developed on a large scale. This diversity is reflected in the total cost of installing a
biomass power plant: in 2010, it varied between US$ 1800 and 6800 per kilowatt. If
biomass is used in conjunction with fossil fuels, the costs go down considerably. In
2010, operations and maintenance costs contribute significantly to account for 20 %
of LCOE for biomass power plants.
Hydropower is a mature technology and its LCOE is generally very low. The
LCOE for large hydro is around US$ 0.04 per kilowatt-hour and it can reach
US$ 0.20 per kilowatt-hour in the case in which the dams are also used for other
purposes. The cost is so little that it makes hydropower technology more com-
petitive among existing technologies to produce electricity. Small hydro-costs are
slightly higher but still competitive.
3.4
Feed-In Tariff Versus Feed-In Premium in the EU
Guidelines on State Aid for Environmental Protection
and Energy 2014-2020
Currently, the European Commission, through the adoption of specific guidelines
on state aid for environmental protection and energy 2014-2020 (IP/14/400) has set
new posts reserved for state aid to RES. The new guidelines are going to replace the
2008 State aid Guidelines on Environmental Protection from 1 July 2014.
The aim of the measures contained in the new guidelines is to reduce the distor-
tions that have characterized the incentives in recent years, in particular with respect
to the weight that the incentives have had on bills paid by European consumers.
The European Commission has also required member countries to reduce taxes
on energy companies so that they might recover competitiveness at the international
level.
These, in fact, have judged the punitive measure for the future deployment of
RES, as well as recognize by the EU, an excessive interference in national energy
policy and a will not fully supported. The guidelines have been designed to gradu-
ally replace the incentives for RES with a competitive process based on public auc-
tions. It is, indeed, a setting that finds supporters in our country, especially in refer-
ence to the weight, in recent times, the incentives for RES have become part of the
electricity bill, a matter of concern to consumers, especially in times of economic
crisis.
By analyzing the text of the guidelines, particularly with regard to changes that
affect the national promotion of RES, for example, in 2016 the plants above 500 kW
(over 3 MW for wind power) will be subject to balance responsibility and therefore
cannot be further encouraged by incentives in cases where the power generation
takes place in a context characterized by negative prices of megawatt-hour, as it
happens in some electricity markets in the EU.
Search WWH ::
Custom Search