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Law of finance for renewable energy projects in the EU ::secondary law and support schemes /
No full text"The book delves into the nascent field of renewable energy support law, with a focus on the EU. It critically interprets and analyses the rules and the legal system that govern the finance of renewable energy projects in the EU. The book scrutinises the different types of support schemes and elucidates how they work, what effects they generate, and how they have been applied in practice. It expounds the impact of EU secondary legislation on national renewable energy support policies, distinguishing three aspects: selection, design and implementation of support schemes. For a complete comprehension of the field, the legal analysis is combined with law and economics analysis. Recent initiatives for the financing support of renewable energy projects at the EU level (EU Renewables Financing Mechanism, Hydrogen Bank and 'Auctions as a Service') are also appraised, and broader recommendations for the future consolidation and development of EU renewable energy support law are proposed. The book fills a gap in the study of the law governing the finance of renewable energy projects, and is a valuable companion for jurists, both practitioners and academics, professionals and students, who wish to decode the law of finance for renewable energy sources"-
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Renewable energy support schemes in the EU ::state aid law and the free movement of goods /
No full text"The book analyses how State aid law and the law of the free movement of goods apply to renewable energy support schemes, how they have impacted on the design and implementation of national support schemes, and how they have been instrumentalised to affect national renewable energy support policies. Legal theory and practice have not given a methodical answer to the following questions: when do renewable energy support schemes constitute State aid? When are they compatible with the internal market? When do they pose fiscal or non-fiscal trade barriers? And are such trade barriers justifiable? This book answers such questions from a theoretical and a practice-oriented point of view, and aspires to elucidate how EU primary law should apply to support schemes. It critically analyses case law, and it interprets and examines the practical application of primary EU law, secondary State aid legislation, as well as soft law State aid Guidelines. This book will be of interest to practitioners, judges, academics, and students and policy makers that are interested in scrutinising the legality of renewable energy support schemes within the EU legal order"-
Fondul Proprietatea: Security of Electricity Supply under Energy Law and under State Aid Law · Case C‑179/20 Fondul Proprietatea
No full textCase C-179/20 is an exemplary illustration of how legislative and regulatory interventions by the national authorities in the field of energy can give rise to questions of compliance with EU energy law, but also to questions of compatibility with State aid law. Indeed, in the early 2010s, and in transposing Directive 2009/72 that established common rules for the generation, transmission, distribution and supply of electricity, the Romanian State reformed her national legislation on energy, and she adopted an administrative decision on the operation of the electricity transmission system, which contained beneficial terms for two electricity companies. This decision gave rise to a legal dispute between the Romanian State and the beneficiaries, on the one hand, and another electricity generation company, which considered it was harmed, on the other. The CJEU examined whether granting to certain thermal power stations priority dispatch, guaranteed access to the grid, and the guaranteed provision of ancillary services at regulated prices constituted State aid that should have been notified to the Commission, as per Article 108(3) TFEU
Νομολογιακές εξελίξεις στον έλεγχο των κρατικών ενισχύσεων για την προώθηση των ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας
No full textΣτις 28 Μαρτίου 2019 το Δικαστήριο της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, με την απόφασή του επί της υποθέσεως C-405/16 P, έκρινε πως ο νόμος «EEG 2012» της Γερμανίας για την στήριξη των ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας δεν αποτελεί κρατική ενίσχυση. Η απόφαση αυτή αναίρεσε την απόφαση του Γενικού Δικαστηρίου T-47/15 και επιβεβαίωσε την από 2017 και από την απόφαση ENEA διαφαινόμενη τάση της νομολογίας προς μία λιγότερο αυστηρή ερμηνεία του άρθρου 107, παράγραφος 1 της Συνθήκης για τη Λειτουργία της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. Ωστόσο, λίγο αργότερα, στις 20 Σεπτεμβρίου 2019, στην απόφαση T-217/17, το Γενικό Δικαστήριο επεκύρωσε απόφαση της Επιτροπής που είχε διαπιστώσει ότι το από 2006 καθεστώς στήριξης ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας της Τσεχίας αποτελούσε κρατική ενίσχυση. Το παρόν άρθρο αναλύει τις νομολογιακές αυτές εξελίξεις και εξετάζει την σημασία τους, σε συνδυασμό και με τις πρόσφατες νομοθετικές πρωτοβουλίες, για τα εθνικά σχέδια στήριξης των ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας
The Fiat Case and a Judicial Epilogue in the Tax Rulings Saga
No full textOn 8 November 2022, the Court of Justice (appellate body) published its judgment in Joined Cases C‑885/19 P and C‑898/19 P that dealt with the tax ruling that Luxembourg had granted to the group Fiat Chrysler Finance Europe. The judgment annulled the Commission’s 2015 decision that found that the granting of this tax ruling constitutes illegal State aid and required Luxembourg to recover the incompatible and unlawful aid. With this judgment, the concept of ‘selectivity’ in State aid, at least with regards to tax measures, is delineated, and it is revealed to be narrower than it seemed. The arm’s length principle does not form part of State aid law, unless national law gives a concrete expression to it, and the Commission can only rely upon the principle of non-discrimination to assess the national rules that establish and determine the application of the arm’s length principle. This is the judicial epilogue of the Fiat case and of the saga of the tax rulings – unless the exact delineation of the powers of the Commission opens a new chapter in the future
State aid assessment for renewable energy support schemes: deconstructing the Guidelines on State aid for Climate, Environmental Protection and Energy, in view of the recent major crises.
No full textThe attainment of the clean energy transition in the EU requires substantial additional investment in renewable energy projects. In this regard, Member States have been and still are using support schemes, regulatory instruments that financially support such investments in different ways. However, since support schemes constitute an intervention in the market, their legality and compatibility with the internal market is not self-evident but needs to be assessed under State aid law. This assessment is typically conducted on the basis of soft law conditions that the Commission adopts with its Guidelines. The latest relevant body of Guidelines is the CEEAG of 2022, and this paper critically presents and analyses the conditions of the CEEAG that involve the promotion of renewable energy sources. It interprets the conditions, shows how priorly applicable conditions have evolved and have found a new expression in the CEEAG, and highlights grey areas and weak points of the CEEAG. In addition, this paper weighs the CEEAG against the most recent uncertainties, particularly the ones posed by the effects of the energy price and security crises that have challenged the prevalent modus operandi for the promotion of renewable energy sources
EU Renewable Energy Support Law: An Autonomous-Principled Sub-Field of Energy Law
No full textSupportive financing for renewable energy sources (RES) is crucial for the attainment of clean energy transition. Nevertheless, ‘renewable energy support law’, that is, the corpus of rules that govern the design, enactment, and implementation of support schemes for RES is not consolidated as a discipline of law yet. Accordingly, this paper aspires to crystallize renewable energy support law as an autonomous sub-field of energy law. It investigates the features that determine the disciplinary identity of an area of study: a link with societal challenges, the development of concrete objectives and methods, and the formulation of principles. The paper proceeds to establish that energy lawmeets these criteria. Next, it demonstrates that, within the broader framework set by the ‘Energy Trilemma’ theory, renewable energy support law has special societal relevance, and, mostly, distinctive principles: (1) the market-based and market-responsive character and (2) the predictability of the terms of support, which are autonomous, and unique in this discipline of law; (3) the principle of an open, transparent, competitive, non-discriminatory, and cost-effective granting of support, which is a unique feature of this field, but draws inspiration from public procurement law; and, (4) borrowed from state aid law, the avoidance of unnecessary market distortions
The promotion of renewable energy communities in the European Union
No full textThis chapter examines the promotion of renewable energy communities in the European Union (EU), as a trend and a policy objective that aims to contribute to the adequate provision of energy services, to the increase of energy efficiency, as well as to the attainment of sustainable development and the low-carbon energy transition. Accordingly, the chapter presents the supranational legal framework for the renewable energy communities and examines the measures that have been and are expected to be employed by Member States to actually promote their development. In terms of structure, Section 2.2 examines how the supranational legal order links the provision of energy services with the target of increasing energy efficiency. Next, Sections 2.3 and 2.4 focus on decentralization and renewable energy communities respectively as means for increasing energy efficiency. Section 2.5 focuses on the EU legal framework for the promotion of renewable energy communities , and Section 2.6 reviews how Member States plan to actually promote the development of renewable energy communities in the future. The analysis will be based on the national policy objectives expressed in the draft National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) that were submitted to the European Commission in 2019. Last, Conclusion concludes the chapter
Νομολογιακές εξελίξεις στον έλεγχο των κρατικών ενισχύσεων για την προώθηση των ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας
No full textΣτις 28 Μαρτίου 2019 το Δικαστήριο της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης, με την απόφασή του επί της υποθέσεως C-405/16 P, έκρινε πως ο νόμος «EEG 2012» της Γερμανίας για την στήριξη των ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας δεν αποτελεί κρατική ενίσχυση. Η απόφαση αυτή αναίρεσε την απόφαση του Γενικού Δικαστηρίου T-47/15 και επιβεβαίωσε την από 2017 και από την απόφαση ENEA διαφαινόμενη τάση της νομολογίας προς μία λιγότερο αυστηρή ερμηνεία του άρθρου 107, παράγραφος 1 της Συνθήκης για τη Λειτουργία της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης. Ωστόσο, λίγο αργότερα, στις 20 Σεπτεμβρίου 2019, στην απόφαση T-217/17, το Γενικό Δικαστήριο επεκύρωσε απόφαση της Επιτροπής που είχε διαπιστώσει ότι το από 2006 καθεστώς στήριξης ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας της Τσεχίας αποτελούσε κρατική ενίσχυση. Το παρόν άρθρο αναλύει τις νομολογιακές αυτές εξελίξεις και εξετάζει την σημασία τους, σε συνδυασμό και με τις πρόσφατες νομοθετικές πρωτοβουλίες, για τα εθνικά σχέδια στήριξης των ανανεώσιμων πηγών ενέργειας
Europeanisation of Renewable Energy Support Law: A Suspended Step Towards Harmonisation
No full textIn ancient Greek mythology, the goddess Harmonia (Ἁρμονί α), who personifies harmony, was the daughter of Ares, god of war, and Aphrodite, goddess of beauty and love. Extending the interpretation and the symbolism of the myth to the field of law, one could see harmonisation, that is, the action of bringing harmony between different legal systems, as denoting the reconciliation outcome of a process of dispute and cooperation, of discordance and understanding. In the end, harmonisation reconciles ‘the preoccupations and the interests of the various systems so as to avoid conflicts and clashes’.
Of course, such processes do not always end up with the desired result. In many cases, conflicts between different parties cannot be bridged, and harmonisation plans collapse or simply fade over time. This seems to have been the case with the plan for supranational harmonisation of renewable energy support law and of support schemes for renewable energy sources (hereinafter ‘RESSS’), which are instruments that Member States enact in order to promote renewable energy sources. But the recent enactment of the recast Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001, often cited as ‘RED II’, might change the picture.
Since the mid- and late-1990s, when the first seeds of supranational harmonisation of renewable energy support law were planted, there has been little progress. The two first generations of secondary renewable energy law in 2001 and 2009 did not bring about any harmonisation, as it proved impossible for Member States and the Commission to reach an understanding. In response, in 2013 the Commission resorted to the term ‘Europeanisation of support for renewables’ and asked for more convergence in the field. But more recently, in December 2018, Directive 2018/2001 brought about certain interesting developments. The directive set down an EU collective target of a 32 per cent share of energy from renewable sources to be reached by 2030. This target is only binding for the EU as a whole; it is not converted into national targets, as was the case under the previous directive
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