EU Urged to Include Transport in CO2 Market, Research Group Says - Bloomberg

The European Union could expand its carbon trading system to include transport and start option contracts between public institutions and private investors to enhance the coverage of the program, Bruegel institute said. The EU emissions trading system, known as the ETS, imposes pollution limits on more than 11,000 manufacturers and power producers in the region, including Germany’s biggest utility EON AG. While the cap-and-trade program expanded in 2012 to include flights to and from Europe, the price of carbon allowances for December dropped 47 percent from a year ago amid economic slowdown and oversupply concerns. “The only partial coverage of important emitting sectors, namely transport, creates economic inefficiency,” Georg Zachmann, researcher at the Brussels-based Bruegel, wrote in an e-mailed report. “While the ETS has succeeded in containing carbon emissions in the power sector, it has not provided sufficient signals for incentivizing low-carbon investments. Thus, we suggest making the EU ETS wider and deeper.”

PGE Will Invest $2.84 Billion a Year in Shift to Cleaner Power - Bloomberg

The supervisory board of PGE SA, Poland’s biggest power generator, yesterday approved a strategy to invest more than 9 billion zloty ($2.84 billion) a year in 2012-2020 to boost its installed capacity and market share while shifting to nuclear power and renewable energy sources, according to a regulatory statement. PGE will raise its installed capacity, now at 13.1 gigawatts, to 15.8 gigawatts in 2020 and 21.3 gigawatts in 2035, by which time 4.5 gigawatts would come from nuclear power plants. That will involve total capital expenditures of about 330 billion zloty from 2012 to 2035, the company said. The utility is forecasting consolidated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or Ebitda, at about 12 billion zloty in 2020 and 34 billion zloty in 2035. The company is targeting of 2020 fuel mix of 55 percent from lignite, 18 percent from hard coal, 15 percent from natural gas and 11 percent from renewable energy. By 2035, the company will be relying on nuclear plants for 36 percent of its power, followed by lignite at 33 percent, renewables at 14 percent, gas at 11 percent and hard coal at 5 percent. Carbon emissions would decline to 0.86 tons per megawatt hour in 2020 and 0.27 tons in 2035 from 1.06 tons in 2010, the company said. Over that time, PGE would boost its share in the Poland’s power generating market to 44 percent in 2020 and 46 percent in 2035 from 42 percent in 2010.