COGEN Europe welcomes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recognition (with strong agreement) of the key role played by combined heat and power (CHP) in reducing greenhouse gas emissions from energy supply. Marking the contradiction between this finding and the direction of some EU member states’ policy on CHP, COGEN Europe warns that the current situation risks undermining even existing gains.The Working Group III contribution to the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report
[1] shows that global GHG emissions have risen to unprecedented levels
[2] despite a growing number of policies to reduce climate change. Emissions grew more quickly between 2000 and 2010 than in each of the three previous decades.In its consideration of mitigation approaches for different sectors, the IPCC report concluded there is “robust evidence” and “high agreement” that “GHG emissions from energy supply can be reduced significantly by replacing current world average coal-fired power plants with modern, highly efficient natural gas combined-cycle power plants or combined heat and power plants”. Indeed, “delaying mitigation efforts beyond those in place today through 2030 is estimated to substantially increase the difficulty of the transition to low longer-term emissions levels,” the IPCC report warned.In Europe there are signs of further mitigation delay and loss of opportunity. Industrial CHP is facing difficulties in several European countries due to a combination of circumstances, including extreme fluctuations in electricity prices, overcapacity in much of the electricity market and high gas prices, which make industrial CHPs particularly challenging to operate in the near term. Plants in Spain and the Netherlands are at a standstill. These energy market developments come at a particularly crucial stage of the investment cycle, presenting many industrial plant operators with unbearable financial risks regarding reinvestment in these highly efficient plants.COGEN Europe Managing Director Fiona Riddoch says “the IPCC report particularly highlights the value of near-term actions and the value of CHP in CO₂ mitigation. European member states must take steps now to give confidence to stakeholders so that at least their installed capacities will be maintained, through what is an exceptionally difficult time for the larger players in the sector”.
The CTC Network promotes the accelerated transfer of environmentally sound technologies for low carbon and climate resilient development at the request of developing countries.
