Comments on: Commission Opens State Aid Investigation into German Renewables Surcharge Reduction for Energy-intensive Companies and Green Electricity Privilege https://energytransition.org/2013/12/state-aid-investigation-into-german-renewables-surcharge-reduction/ The Global Energiewende Tue, 07 Jan 2014 12:41:57 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.1.1 By: What to expect from Germany’s new government for energy and climate policy in the EU? | Environmental Europe? https://energytransition.org/2013/12/state-aid-investigation-into-german-renewables-surcharge-reduction/#comment-4048 Tue, 07 Jan 2014 12:41:57 +0000 http://energytransition.boellblog.org/?p=4848#comment-4048 […] [9] http://energytransition.de/2013/12/state-aid-investigation-into-german-renewables-surcharge-reductio… […]

]]> By: Richard Rosen https://energytransition.org/2013/12/state-aid-investigation-into-german-renewables-surcharge-reduction/#comment-4047 Tue, 07 Jan 2014 12:41:44 +0000 http://energytransition.boellblog.org/?p=4848#comment-4047 The European Court of Justice case of 2001 makes a clear mistake in its decision. It cites the concept of “real economic value of that type of electricity”. But there is no such economic value that can be quantified, especially not in a single year. When investments are made in renewable electricity technologies, they are made for the long-run. So even if the investment proves highly cost effective relative to other generation technologies, such as new fossil-fuel power plants, the price of power from a renewable technology in the beginning of its lifetime may not be lower in cost, in part because renewable technologies are more capital intensive than fossil-fuel based technologies. There are also other reasons that this concept of “real economic value” does not make sense.

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