Helsinki, Sweeden --
Sweden will not respond to calls from wind-power developers to boost
targets for alternative energy output, for fear of undermining investor
confidence.
“I know it is not always easy to be a wind-power entrepreneur,
with low electricity certificate prices triggering calls for political
intervention,” Anna-Karin Hatt, Swedish minister for information
technology and energy, said today at a conference in Stockholm,
according to an e-mailed copy of her speech.
The Swedish Wind Energy Association wants the government to raise targets for renewable energy investments to secure higher revenue for wind-power producers,
the earnings of which are affected by subdued prices for power and
tradable electricity certificate subsidies. That may cause the country
to fall short of official renewable energy goals, the association said
on Oct. 23.
“I’m genuinely concerned that such unplanned and rash
changes would undermine the credibility of the system,” Hatt said,
ruling out more stringent targets which would secure better viability
for wind farms.
An EU directive from 2009 requires all member-states
to increase the proportion of renewable energy production in gross final
energy consumption so that the bloc reaches a total of 20 percent by
2020. The target for Sweden is 49 percent, compared with a 39.8 percent
share in 2005.
Tradable renewable energy certificates, a subsidy
system introduced in Sweden in 2003 and in Norway this year, are
designed to add a total of 26.4 terawatt-hours of annual power output in
the two countries from 2012 to 2020, mostly from wind power, according to Sweden’s Energy Agency.
Recovery Ahead
The Nordic power contract for 2013 traded at 36.90
euros ($47.16) a megawatt-hour at 11:47 a.m. on the Nasdaq OMX Group
Inc.’s energy exchange in Oslo.
Electricity certificates, which are traded
bilaterally, have risen “markedly since the summer, and have a
significant further upside”, Swedish power trading company Telge Kraft
AB said today in an e-mailed report. That’s helping wind-power investors
to attract financing, with a total of 100 billion Swedish kronor ($14.8
billion) or 3 percent of Swedish GDP needed for the period 2012 through
2020 to boost annual output to as much as 20 terawatt-hours, the
company said.
Copyright 2012 Bloomberg
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/11/sweden-wont-heed-industry-call-for-higher-wind-energy-targets
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