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EU to Sell 300 Million CO2 Permits by End-2012 for Clean Energy
2010-11-09 11:00:14.520 GMT
By Ewa Krukowska and Jonathan Stearns
Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union will sell 300
million carbon-dioxide allowances over the next two years from a
reserve under its cap-and-trade program in a bid to spur clean-
energy projects.
The European Investment Bank will sell the CO2 allowances
from the post-2012 reserve for new companies and disburse the
revenue via national governments to aid projects for carbon
capture and storage and renewable energy. The EIB is the 27-
nation EU's lending arm and the 300 million permits from the
reserve are known as the NER300.
"While details, including the starting date of the sales,
are not fixed yet, it is expected that all NER300 allowances
will be sold before the start of the third trading period of the
EU emissions-trading system in January 2013," the European
Commission said in a statement today in Brussels.
The EU decided in 2008 that revenue from the reserve in the
post-2012 phase of the emissions-trading system would be used to
aid carbon-capture and renewable-energy projects. The system
started in 2005 with a three-year trading period, is now in a
second phase that ends in 2012 and will enter a third stage
running from 2013 through 2020.
The permits to be sold by the EIB will probably be the
first allowances for the next trading period brought to the
market. Power producers have said they need phase-three permits
immediately to hedge their future electricity sales.
"The EIB has to start sales within a month of the
allowances being made available in a registry account," the
commission said. "When further decisions on the sales
channel(s) to be used and other details have been taken, and
before the sales start, the EIB will publish further
information. This will also cover the number of allowances to be
sold in 2011 and 2012, respectively."
In a related step today, the EU opened a contest for the
first portion of the roughly 4.3 billion euros ($6 billion) of
aid from the reserve. The announcement covers 200 million of the
CO2 permits and companies have three months to submit bids.
For Related News and Information:
Emission market news: NI ENVMARKET <GO>
Today's top energy stories: ETOP <GO>
European power-markets home page: EPWR <GO>
Top energy stories: TOP NRG <GO>
--Editor: Jones Hayden
To contact the reporters on this story:
Ewa Krukowska in Brussels at +32-2-237-4331 or
ekrukowska@bloomberg.net;
Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at +32-2-285-4300 or
jstearns2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Stephen Voss at +44-20-7073-3520 or sev@bloomberg.net;
James Hertling at +33-1-5365-5075 or jhertling@bloomberg.net.
