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©ICIS HEREN - Italy considers shrinking agency’s duty to buy green certificates

2010-07-14

The Italian renewable energy sector was relieved on Wednesday (7th July) when a lawmaker introduced an amendment that would diminish the state-run energy management agency GSE's duty to buy left over green certificates in 2011. This is as opposed to eliminating GSE's obligation to buy the certificates completely. Lawmakers in Italy's two chambers must now vote on the amendment, and may decide to introduce new amendments, but the proposal at least quelled concerns that the market for green certificates (CV) would crash immediately, said Francesco Arecco, a Milan-based lawyer who specialises in renewable energy law. "We'll have to see what happens. They've passed from one extreme to another," Arecco said. "Certainly it shows the industry that the market won't close this instant." Under the amendment introduced on Wednesday, the GSE would continue to buy excess CVs this year. In 2011, it would have to reduce the total number of CVs it purchases by 30% compared to the 2010 level. The amendment does not make clear, however, whether the GSE's duty to buy CVs would continue to shrink after 2011. The renewable energy industry was alarmed at the end of May when the government passed a decree aimed at boosting Italy's financial stability and economic competitiveness by freezing the GSE's obligation to purchase CVs not already purchased by the market (see EDEM 1 June 2010). CVs were first introduced in Italy in 1999 to incentivise more renewable generation. The GSE issues CVs on the basis of producers' reports of power generated from clean sources in the previous year, or expected generating capability in the current or following year. While they agreed that the GSE should stop spending hundreds of millions of euros from public funds in order to keep the CV market afloat, experts and renewable energy advocates argued that the responsibility to buy CVs should be shifted onto the industry (see EDEM 3 June 2010). "I think that increasing the obligations would be the best solution," Arecco said. "This at least is positive because it calms the market a bit." To pass the amendment, Italy's two chambers must vote in favour of the exact same text. The vote may come later this month. (RAPOARTELE ICIS HEREN - EDEM 14.130 / 8 July 2010)

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