The published pack includes the draft of revision of the Directive on greenhouse gases emissions allowance trading (Directive 2003/87/ES), draft of the Directive on usage of renewable energy sources and draft of the Directive of capture and storage of CO2 in subsoil (CCS technology).
"It is important to determine the clear long-term regulations for CO2, so that the power engineering companies have a stabile framework for their milliard investments into the construction of the necessary new power plants. This is the purpose of the Directive draft. We consider the most important confirming the commitment to decrease considerably emissions of CO2 in EU and to utilize for this the system of auctions, among others. Their frequency and further administrative aspects are not clear, however, they shall be treated in an independent regulation of the Commission. This regulation should be accepted as soon as possible so that the market participants could learn all the regulations of functioning of ETS system in future. We shall realize that detailed regulations of auctions incl. the total issued volume of allowances and share of their auctioning and allocation for the third and the following business period will considerably influence also the development of the energy price. Simply: the stricter the system will be, the more expensive measures for savings of allowances will have to be implemented by the companies and also the production costs of electricity will rise" was said by Alan Svoboda, business director of CEZ.
The total amount of allowances shall be determined pursuant the proposal on EU level and the basic allocation principle shall be the auction. The third period of business shall last eight years; it is expected that in 2013 at least 2/3 of allowances will be split through the auction and the total emission of the greenhouse gases should drop linearly with the goal of a total decrease by more than 20% in 2020 in comparison with emissions in 2005. Also the regulations for using the credits from projects implemented in the scope of Kyoto mechanisms and projects within the future international contract which shall replace the Kyoto protocol after 2012 shall be modified. The draft imposes the duty to utilize a part of the revenues of the auction for measures of emission decrease (including the usage for the development of modern coal technologies as e.g. CCS, see below, this development is a part of the CEZ action plan in this field).
In case of the new goal of the European Union: the share of renewable sources of 20 % in the final energy consumption up to 2020, the decisive moment will be the determination of the amount of share for individual states, i.e. also for the Czech Republic. In view of the present share of renewable sources in the power consumption in CR, however, this will surely mean the necessity of significant and very costly increase of production of electricity from renewable sources, with the amount of the gross domestic product of individual countries taken in consideration.
„The commitment of the Czech Republic will be of key importance for the Czech power engineering and individual producers incl. CEZ. Within CEZ Action Plan we committed ourselves already one year ago to invest considerably into renewable sources. We separated for such investments 30 mld. crowns. In the Directive draft, we welcome especially the possibility of transfer of a part of commitments between individual countries and on certain conditions also between individual facilities; however, the suggested measures are far from establishing one European market with green electricity, which would reflect, in my opinion, in the best and most effective way the scope of EU commitment and the established costs of production from renewable sources" was added by Alan Svoboda.
The draft of the Directive of usage of renewable energy sources (OZE Directive), which should replace the current 2001/77/EC Directive on OZE share in electricity production (in the national legislation it is transposed by the Act 180/2005 Coll. of the support of producing electricity from renewable sources) and 2003/30/EC Directive of the support of bio-fuel usage. The draft supposes also extension of usage of „Guarantee of origin", GoO - origin certificate (up to now only for the electricity production), for the production of heat/cooling and it enables covering a part of share through GoO; primarily the transfer of these certificates on the level of member states is considered.
CEZ Power Engineering Company wants also to participate actively on the anticipated demonstration units and introducing technologies of catching and permanent storage of carbon dioxide in the geological structure, mentioned in the draft of the third guideline in the environmental pack - draft of the guideline of CO2 capture and storage in subsoil (CCS - carbon capture and storage - technology). The draft determines the legal scope for the safety of the storage - it introduces the issue of allowances for the geological survey and survey of permits for storage; its term is limited and it is subject to Commission revision.
„CCS technologies are at the beginning and are not used in the commercial operation so far; however, in the scope of the constructional design of the new power plant in Ledvice we leave the space for the possible future construction of CO2 separation unit," Alan Svoboda added.
CEZ Group participates in the development of CCS technologies also by the participation in the GeoCapacity project. The goal of this program is to verify by the end of 2008 the possibilities of the underground capacities for CO2 storage especially in the Central as well as Eastern Europe, incl. finding suitable localities. In the CR this comprehensive survey will be performed for the first time.
The system of separation and the following CO2 storage (CCS - Carbon Capture and Storage) is one of the variants being considered in the world for reduction of emissions of this gas. This is a new procedure used up to now only at several places in the world only in the testing mode (i.e. a pilot separation unit in Denmark built within CASTOR international project). The CCS system consists of three steps - CO2 separation (at present, the most developed is the technology of separation after coal combustion „post-combustion capture", there exist, however, also the variant of separation before the combustion „pre-combustion capture"), its transport through the pipeline and at the end the storage in suitable spaces (most often, the storage in deep not used aquifers or empty deposits of oil or gas is considered).