EC approves Romania’s request to save large electricity consumers EUR 750 mln in green certificate expenses

The European Commission has approved the partial exemption from buying the mandatory green certificates for large electricity consumers in Romania. The country is also the first to get the EU greenlight for this partial exemption, structured as a state aid scheme, without being subject to any EC investigation. This state aid, which does not come in cash, but rather as a reduction in the number of mandatory green certificates to be acquired, is valid for 10 years, and will be applied from December 1, 2014, according to Romania’s Economy Ministry. This recent decision however does not change the total number of green certificates that need to be acquired by electricity consumers to support renewable energies, but rather shifts the burden on the other consumers besides large industrial consumers. The Government had forwarded this state aid request to the European Commission after large electricity consumers, such as aluminum producer Alro and steel producer Arcelor Mittal Galati complained about the high price tag of the green energy support scheme. The approved state aid scheme helps 300 large industrial consumers save some EUR 75 million a year for the next ten years, resulting in overall savings of EUR 750 million. The state aid beneficiaries have about 760,000 employees and use about 20% of the gross energy consumed in Romania. editor@romania-insider.com