COGEN Europe gives a cautious welcome to the adoption of ITRE report on the Energy Efficiency Directive, but sees it falling short of delivering a European vision for CHP

The ITRE report provides a working basis for the forthcoming negotiations with the Council, notably an increased focus on end-users via the article 61 and the new demand management measures and micro-CHP provisions. However, today’s vote does not deliver a strong enough message on CHP.

On the one side, COGEN Europe members recognise the major step forward achieved by the Members of the Parliament on empowering citizens and small and medium-sized power generators to participate in the energy market of the future via demand side management program.

On the other side, the CHP sector is concerned that relying solely on the Cost Benefit Analysis to achieve CHP growth will leave room for many different national and local interpretations, and lacks clarity and certainty for stakeholders. In addition, ITRE’s proposal weakens the position of CHP in its relationship to grid access raising the level of risk in investments.

Since the launch of the review of the original CHP Directive2, the CHP sector has been advocating for an ambitious CHP policy and received positively the Commission’s proposal which gave that needed impulse via its articles 10 and 12. The ITRE report could be interpreted as a step backward a) compared to the spirit of the former article, and b) on the technical changes to the latter article.

Dr Fiona Riddoch, Managing Director of COGEN Europe commented “we acknowledge the milestone achieved in ITRE today but do think that the report lacks sufficient ambition on energy efficiency in the transformation process. The sector is now looking to the final stage of the co-decision process to fulfil the expectations set out in the original EED proposal.”

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For more information please contact:

Dr Fiona Riddoch, Managing Director

Email: fiona.riddoch@cogeneurope.eu

1 Title of the article 6 reworded “energy end use saving schemes”

2 Directive 2004/8/EC