www.environmental-finance.com/
Paris, 29 January:
European Union energy projects, including carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology and offshore wind farms, could receive a €3.5 billion ($4.6 billion) cash injection under plans proposed by the European Commission on Wednesday. The Commission proposed spending the majority of the €5 billion left over from last year's EU budget on "key energy infrastructure projects" that will "deliver a much needed stimulus to the EU economy in the short term...[and] target strategic goals such as energy security".
The plan calls for €1.75 billion to be spent on gas and electricity interconnection projects, €1.25 billion on CCS technology and €500 million on offshore wind projects. The Commission said the investments were necessary to improve energy security in Europe. "In the current economic and financial climate, projects are finding it particularly difficult to access investment," said Brussels, claiming that the proposed support would "put these projects back on track".
Five CCS projects - in the UK, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands and Poland - will be supported by the plan, each with an investment of €250 million. "All the projects are at an advanced state of readiness so as to ensure the beneficial effects of the investment as soon as possible," said the Commission. It proposes €500 million to finance an offshore wind energy programme that will focus on "providing support to large-scale offshore new demonstration projects ... and possibly up-scaling existing ones".
It said support would be given to projects "already at a reasonable state of development", with "cross-border significance, situated in deeper waters (up to 50 metres) and further from shore (up to 100 kilometres) to reap benefit from high wind resources potential". Wind farms in the Baltic and North Sea will each receive €150 million for grid integration projects.
Alpha Ventus/Bard Offshore, off Germany and Poland, the Aberdeen offshore wind farm, off Scotland, and Thornton Bank, off Belgium will receive €150 million, €40 million and €10 million respectively. Part of the €1.75 billion set aside for strategic gas and electricity interconnections will be used to help fund a North Sea offshore grid.
Christian Kjaer, chief executive of the European Wind Energy Association, said making Europe's interconnectors more efficient and improving the electrical grid would "help speed the development of offshore wind energy". However, Green member of the European Parliament Claude Turmes said the proposal was "inadequate [and] unbalanced", with a "bloated €3 billion for coal and gas and a meagre €500 million for wind energy". The Commission said it hoped the proposals would be agreed by EU ministers and the European Parliament by the EU spring summit in March.
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