“Make Power Clean” Initiative Aims To Promote Cleaner European Electricity Market

Thirteen industry leaders and associations from across Europe launched the new “Make Power Clean” initiative on Monday, which aims to promote a European electricity market designed to deliver cleaner electricity across the region.

The Make Power Clean initiative is made up of thirteen big-name companies and organizations representing Europe — including Shell, Siemens, Statoil, Total, Eni, Snam, Eurogas, Nordex and Acciona, Iberdrola, Gas Natural Fenosa, Solar Power Europe, Wind Europe, and the European Semiconductor Industry Association. Together, the Make Power Clean initiative aims to lobby European policy makers to ensure that only those energy technologies considered “clean” are eligible to receive public support in the form of capacity mechanisms. The initiative believes that the European Union’s electricity market must become more flexible, secure, and sustainable, if Europe is to make it onto a track that leads to a successful transition to a low-carbon energy sector. As such, the initiative hopes to ensure that Member State aid does not incentivize the further growth of fossil fuel technologies.

Specifically, therefore, the Make Power Clean initiative is calling on the European Council and the European Parliament “to endorse the 550g CO2/kWh carbon criterion, which is critical to the overall consistency and efficiency of EU climate and energy policy.”

“Europe’s electricity market design needs to be fully consistent with the EU climate strategy,” the initiative wrote in a letter sent to European leaders (PDF). They continue, explaining that the European Commission’s plans for a 550g CO2/kWh carbon eligibility criterion “is a step in the right direction, which we encourage you to support.” Such a move is considered “transparent and in line with the European Investment Bank’s investment rules” and “is also technology neutral: plants with higher CO2 emissions will still be able to operate in the market, simply paying for their emissions in the frame of the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS).”