International workshop on changing renewables support in the eu electricity markets

Abstract

Summary
Policy instruments to promote renewables (RES-E) in the electricity system have been recently re-assessed by a number of EU member states as well as the European Commission. One policy driver of national reforms in Germany, France, and Spain has been the growing concern about the increase in the cost of renewables support policies and the system costs of large scale variable power generation by RES-E. The European Commission’s new State Aid guidelines require that by 2016 RES-E support policies need to be reformed in a manner such as to provide better operational incentives for managing RES projects and to expose them to market risk. France is about to follow the Commission’s recommendations by adopting a mechanism based on feed-in premiums and auctioning to attribute long term contracts for RES-E projects.

These ongoing reforms of RES support schemes raise a number of issues:
• What are the best instruments among those which are compatible with the new State Aid guidelines?
• Will the new support schemes exposing RES projects to market risk have an effect on renewables projects financing? Will they increase the cost of capital?
• More generally, will these new support schemes affect renewables growth and could they hamper countries in their ability to meet the 2020 RES target?

In this situation, the Chaire European Electricity Markets (CEEM) is organizing an international seminar that brings together policymakers, investors and experts from academe and international organizations to discuss the implications of the new guidelines in the fast-changing context of European electricity markets.