Montenegro expects more hours for Pljevlja power plant
Montenegrin state-owned utility EPCG expects to be granted additional operating hours for the 225MW Pljevlja lignite-fired plant, which had been due to close last year.
EPCG expects negotiations between the Montenegrin government and regional regulatory body the Energy Community over granting additional operating hours to be completed by the end of Pljevlja's annual overhaul, which is due to last until 1 June, EPCG's new executive director, Nikola Rovcanin, said.
The utility expects a positive outcome from the negotiations owing to the importance of Pljevlja to Montenegro's power system and the negative effects that would come with its closure. The country would need to spend around €80mn ($96mn) on power imports, Rovcanin said, in the event that Pljevlja was unable to resume operating between 1 June and July 2022, when it is expected to complete upgrades intended to bring the plant in line with newer emissions regulations that would allow it to operate freely again.
And the impacts of the Covid-19 outbreak, which delayed the start of the environmental upgrades at the plant, could also impact the decision, Rovcanin said.
Pljevlja opted out of the EU's Large Combustion Plants Directive (LCPD), meaning it is only allowed to operate for 20,000 hours from 2018-23, after which it is required to close or be upgraded to meet the EU's best available techniques reference (BREF) standards.
But Pljevlja ran for a total of 21,003 hours in 2018-20, exceeding its limit around November. The plant continued to operate until shutting for annual maintenance at the start of this month.
EPCG did not confirm that the plant had exceeded its allowed operating limit last year until operational data were reported to the European Environment Agency at the end of last month. A change in government in Montenegro in December has further confused matters, with the previous government having announced no plans for what would happen if Pljevlja was forced to cease generating.
Environmental organisation CEE Bankwatch Network has called on the Energy Community to begin an infringement procedure against Montenegro for the continued operation of Pljevlja. The group said that extending the plant's operating hours would set a "worrying precedent if not tackled". Neither the Energy Community Secretariat nor the European Commission are able to grant additional hours to Pljevlja as this falls outside of their mandates, the group said, adding that such a move would require amending the LCPD.
Furthermore, EPCG has not publicly shown that its current modernisation plans would actually bring Pljevlja up to the required BREF standards, or that it is economically justified, CEE Bankwatch Network said.
Several other lignite-fired units in the Balkans are approaching the end of their operating limits, including Bosnia's 110MW Kakanj 5 unit, which had used 13,880 hours by the end of 2020, and the country's 200MW Tuzla 4 unit, which was on 14,239 hours. These would both need to close before 2023 or reduce output compared with previous years to avoid exceeding their limits, but could be disincentivised to do so if there were no repercussions for Pljevlja's non-compliance with the LCPD.
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Japan mulls seeking more gas-fired capacity in auction
Japan mulls seeking more gas-fired capacity in auction
Osaka, 1 July (Argus) — Japan is considering further adding to gas-fired power generation capacity through its long-term zero emissions power capacity auction, given forecasts of rising electricity demand with the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence. A working group under the trade and industry ministry Meti has proposed to look for an additional 4GW of gas-fired capacity over two fiscal years from April 2024-March 2026 via a clean power auction. This came after awarded gas-fired capacity reached 5.76GW in the first auction held in January , with the auction seeking about 6GW over three years. The second auction — which Tokyo plans to hold in January 2025 — could seek 2.24GW, including the remaining 0.24GW in the first auction, for 2024-25 and another 2GW for 2025-26 in a third auction, the working group suggested. It has also proposed to extend the period within which awarded gas-fired projects have to start operations to eight years from the previous six years, given current resource shortages at plant manufacturers. Japan has launched the auction system to spur investment in clean power sources by securing funding in advance to drive the country's decarbonisation towards 2050. This generally targets clean power sources — such as renewables, nuclear, storage battery, biomass, hydrogen and ammonia. But the scheme also applies to new power plants burning regasified LNG as an immediate measure to ensure stable power supplies, subject to a gradual switch from gas to cleaner energy sources. These measures will not necessarily lead to increased demand for LNG, as Japanese import demand for the fuel would further come under pressure from expanded use of renewables and nuclear power. But the power sector will have to secure enough capacity to meet peak demand, especially with power consumption by data centres and semiconductor producers expected to continue to increase. Japan's peak power demand in 2033-34 is forecast at 161GW, up from an estimated 159GW in 2024-25, as the country's digital push will more than offset the impact of falling population and further energy saving efforts, according to the nationwide transmission system operator Organisation for Cross-regional Co-ordination of Transmission Operator. By Motoko Hasegawa Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Q&A: Corporate reporting and certification schemes
Q&A: Corporate reporting and certification schemes
London, 28 June (Argus) — Corporate reporting standards and obligations are becoming more granular and falling under greater scrutiny across the EU, after new rules came into force at the start of 2024. Argus spoke to net zero adviser Nils Holta at environmental solutions provider Ecohz to review changes to EU legislation and consider their impact on wholesale energy attribute certificates markets. Edited highlights follow: Let's start by decoding the acronyms and taking stock of changes to reporting standards this year. What do the principles of the CSRD and ESRS look like? How do these align with the EU Taxonomy? These are all thematically related pieces of legislation, that are not formally linked to each other. The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the EU Sustainable Investment Taxonomy are two of the angles of a sustainability transparency triangle completed by the Green Claims Directive (GCD). Through these policy mechanisms, the EU seeks to cover sustainability reporting, sustainability criteria for investments, and marketing information to consumers. Essentially, the EU is trying to add sustainability as a new dimension of the single market, alongside standardised comparisons on quality and price. The CSRD relates more to the finance side. Through the annex with the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), it details how companies should report on their sustainability impact, their sustainability-related risks, and any financial opportunities that arrive as a result of sustainability matters. It has been developed as an addition to European financial disclosure requirements, and in Norway, for instance, it has been transposed through amendments to the "accounting law" (Regnskapsloven). For financial undertakings, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) plays much the same role, albeit at a higher level of granularity. On the consumer-facing side, companies will soon be required to adhere to the GCD when promoting their products' environmental profiles to final consumers in what the EU calls "explicit environmental claims". While not quite the same as sustainability reporting, it fits in a market dynamic where the EU expects economic actors to be more transparent about the environmental qualities of their products — like we are used to for price and quality. Finally, we have the EU Taxonomy for sustainable activities, or just the Taxonomy. The Taxonomy is a list of economic activities with clear criteria on how they can be performed sustainably, and, in some cases, how they can be considered a transitional activity to more sustainable options. The Taxonomy also mandates that large undertakings and financial actors disclose the percentage of their Capex [capital expenditure], Opex [operating expenditure], and turnover that is invested in, finances, or derives from activities that are considered sustainable under the Taxonomy. Here is the link to the CSRD (ESRS), GCD and SFDR. If you are required to report on the percentage of your investments or turnover that is associated with sustainable activities, you need to know how all the companies you invest in are performing. And through the CSRD they are required to share this information in a transparent and streamlined manner. If, as a company, you want to make a claim about a product's environmental profile, you are now also required to possess and sort the information necessary to found that claim through the same directive. So here we have the triangle — the Taxonomy and SFDR push investors towards sustainable investments. The GCD provides consumers with a choice to consume sustainably, and the CSRD and ESRS ensure that companies have the information necessary for the other two to work. So the EU wants you to base Taxonomy reporting or environmental claims on the information published in your CSRD reporting? Not quite. I should stress at this point that EU law does not require companies to use the same methodologies for their CSRD reporting as for explicit environmental claims under the GCD or for showing criteria alignment with the Taxonomy. The simple reason is that communication to different audiences — shareholders, financial sector institutions, consumers — might require different approaches. It is, however, very simple to base claims under the Taxonomy or GCD on information gathered for CSRD reporting, and I have seen companies rely on CSRD reporting for claims of Taxonomy-alignment in their annual reports. How are things changing within the CSRD in terms of how industrial and corporate (I&C) companies will need to document energy — power and gas — consumption throughout their supply chains? What does it mean in terms of scope 2 and 3 emissions? This is a good place to clarify terminology. The CSRD is an EU directive that mandates sustainability reporting, sets out how member states are responsible for making sure companies report, and details which categories of companies need to report. All in all, we are taking about at least 50,000 EU-based companies and maybe another 10,000 non-EU companies with operations in the EU, as a rough assessment. The ESRS are the technical standards, outlining — over some 300 pages — how companies can assess what information they need to report and how this can be reported. The ESRS go into detail regarding how questions about energy consumption and climate transition plans or supply chains are asked and framed. Thank you for the clarification, and now back to the market-based vs location-based reporting? In general, the ESRS move towards market-based reporting. Emissions are to be reported by scope — 1, 2 and 3 — separately and using both market-based and location-based methodologies for Scope 2. They are also to be reported against total turnover, so investors can see the greenhouse gas intensity of their investments' turnover. At the same time, the ESRS clearly state that energy consumption must be reported using the market-based methodology in the case of Scope 2, and that it "can" be market-based in Scope 1, which for most companies would primarily relate to gas. The latter is highly technical and is tied to the EU emissions trading system monitoring and reporting requirements. Disclosing companies must report Scope 3 as it was reported to them. There is no option to not report on Scope 3 emissions outside of Europe, which means that these 60,000 or so companies will push their own reporting requirements through their entire value chain. It also means that oil and gas companies will finally need to include emissions from combustion of their own products in their sustainability reporting. Considering that changes to the CSRD will lead to greater focus on Scope 3 emissions, how is this likely to impact the energy attribute certificates (EAC) markets? Are you already seeing changing approaches to EAC procurement? How do biomethane and hydrogen fit into the picture, and is there a role for carbon offsets? What we are seeing is a greater corporate interest in understanding their own value chain and getting their suppliers to cover Scope 2 consumption with EACs. They can even use the divergence between location and market-based reporting to stress how much they actually achieve by sourcing renewable energy. The result is quite literally the difference between the two numbers. The ESRS do not open for carbon offsets as a way of reducing total emissions. Any offsets must be reported separately. Biomethane and hydrogen would both serve to decarbonise your gas combustion, so mainly Scope 1. However, the requirements for credible claims to consumption are tied to a bundled model, so we expect less focus on certificate trade and more focus on efficient value chains to deliver the product as a whole. There are a lot of open questions here tied to member state transposition of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) III — and in some cases RED II — and to the coming Union Database for renewable fuels. How will the GCD impact consumer disclosure requirements and how does it tangentially relate to the Taxonomy? Do you expect this to also drive more granular purchases in EAC markets? When procuring EACs, will additional specifications such as eco labels become more prominent in the market? There is no specific link between the GCD and the Taxonomy, but Taxonomy-alignment would definitely be one of the things that can be communicated and substantiated in a way that is aligned with the GCD. Using an eco-label is a way to distinguish your product among several who all use renewable electricity. However, it is difficult to assess exactly how companies and consumers will react to this information in the long term. In the near future, we expect the GCD to lead to a reduction in environmental performance claims overall, at least until companies have a decent understanding of what and how they should communicate. The fine is up to 10pc of total turnover. There are often questions around how nuclear power is viewed in the EU Taxonomy — can you clarify that? And how do you see nuclear power — through scope 2/3 — playing a role in I&C companies documenting carbon neutrality through disclosure mechanisms? There has been a growing trend of energy suppliers offering carbon-neutral tariffs as opposed to renewable owing to the greater cost of documenting renewables through EACs, on top of already higher outright power and gas prices. Do you see I&C customers taking a similar route? Under the Taxonomy, nuclear is not considered renewable. It is, however, acknowledged as carbon-neutral, and we see several EU initiatives targeted at promoting "low-carbon" rather than renewable solutions. There is also an addendum to the Taxonomy, where nuclear and gas-fired power plants can be considered Taxonomy-aligned under certain circumstances. For gas, this relates to replacing coal and being time-limited in nature; while for nuclear, it is tied to a series of environmental and waste-treatment requirements. As long as the market recognises a qualitative difference between renewable and nuclear, EACs for each will be priced differently. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
Mexico to tap economist for energy minister
Mexico to tap economist for energy minister
Mexico City, 27 June (Argus) — Mexican president-elect Claudia Sheinbaum appointed economist and lawyer Luz Elena Gonzalez to become energy minister in her government that will take office on 1 October. Gonzalez has a long record in public service and served as finance director of the Mexico City government during Sheinbaum's tenure as the capital's mayor from 2018-2024. She has no direct energy industry experience. Sheinbaum won a convincing victory in the 2 June presidential elections and will take office on 1 October when Morena political party founder and current president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ends his six-year term. Gonzalez will face a range of challenges as energy minister including completion of the long-delayed Olmeca refinery, development of a plan to tackle state-owned Pemex's enormous debt, expansion of Mexico's electricity generation and grid capacity with a renewed focus on clean energy and the construction of natural gas storage. She will also be in charge of policy decisions that will define the role of private-sector investors in the energy sector. Gonzalez will replace Miguel Angel Maciel, appointed following energy minister Rocio Nahle's resignation in October 2023 to pursue the Veracruz gubernatorial election. Nahle, who took office as energy minister in 2018, led efforts to build the Olmeca refinery and has been a strident supporter of Lopez Obrador's energy sovereignty policy that has sought to restrict private-sector investment. Sheinbaum also appointed Jesus Esteva as transport minister, Raquel Buenrostro as civil service minister, David Kershenobich as health minister and Edna Elena Vega as urban and rural development minister. All of the candidates appointed today have either worked with Sheinbaum during her period as Mexico City mayor or in Lopez Obrador's government. By Rebecca Conan Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
UK election pledges show different paths to net zero
UK election pledges show different paths to net zero
The outcome of the election will have a significant impact on the pace of energy transition, particularly regarding North Sea gas production, writes Georgia Gratton London, 26 June (Argus) — The UK's two main political parties have set out their plans on energy and climate change in their manifestos, ahead of the country's general election on 4 July. Energy security and the cost to consumers is a common theme, but the two parties diverge on their approach to the energy transition. Both the incumbent Conservative and opposition Labour parties are committed to the country's goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050, which is legally-binding and was passed with significant cross-party support under a Conservative government in 2019. The Conservatives have promised a "pragmatic and proportionate" route to achieve that target — guaranteeing "no new green levies or charges". Labour, which according to recent polls is on course to secure a sizeable majority, has pledged to accelerate the path to net zero, and has committed to a zero-carbon UK power system by 2030. Labour has pledged to "maintain a strategic reserve of gas power stations to guarantee security of supply", but its manifesto does not clarify whether that would involve building any new plants to replace ageing units. In contrast, the Conservative manifesto reiterates previously announced plans to build new gas-fired power stations. The party had previously committed to a decarbonised power network by 2035, in line with a G7 pledge, although that is not mentioned in its manifesto. Both parties are considering measures that could reduce residential gas demand in the long term. They have pledged to invest similar amounts of public money in energy efficiency schemes — £6.6bn ($8.3bn) over the next parliament for Labour, which it says will be used to upgrade 5mn homes, against £6bn over the next three years for the Conservatives, which their manifesto says will "make a million homes warmer". Labour also plans to work with the private sector, including banks and building societies, to facilitate the provision of further private finance in such schemes. The Conservative Party announced that it will fund an "energy efficiency voucher scheme", without providing further details. The different pace of the parties' energy transition plans is apparent from their respective renewable energy targets. Labour's plans to "double onshore wind, triple solar power, and quadruple offshore wind by 2030" would result in installed capacity of 31GW, 48GW and 59GW, respectively, against an end of 2023 baseline. The Conservatives' target to triple offshore wind by the end of the next parliament would put installed capacity at 44GW in 2029 — below the 50GW target for 2030 set in 2022 — while it said it supports solar and onshore wind in some circumstances. The two main parties support nuclear power, including small modular reactors, although those are unlikely to be operational until after 2030. And both pledge to cut planning bureaucracy and tackle grid connections. Diverging upstream The parties have adopted markedly different positions with regard to North Sea oil and gas production. Labour is clear that it "will not revoke existing licences" in the North Sea, but it will not issue any new licences for oil, gas or coal exploration or production, and has pledged to "ban fracking for good". The Conservatives have restated their aim to legislate for annual North Sea licensing rounds, and to "retain the current moratorium on fracking". The Conservative Party aims to keep the windfall tax — which effectively results in a 75pc rate — on oil and gas producers' profits in place "until 2028-29, unless prices fall back to normal sooner". Labour has confirmed plans to lift the rate to 78pc and to retain the tax until the end of the next parliament, which is likely to be mid-2029. Send comments and request more information at feedback@argusmedia.com Copyright © 2024. Argus Media group . All rights reserved.
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