Would emission trading promote end-use energy efficiency and renewable energy projects?

摘要

Will the current implementation of emission trading trigger sufficient additional investments in end-use energy efficiency (EUEE) and renewable energy sources (RES) in the near-term? Answering this question requires an in-depth analysis of emissions trading schemes, RES and EUEE investment criteria, market dynamics, and inertia in the energy system, among other things. Because this is a task too ambitious within the scope of the current paper, we narrow the present discussion to analysis of currently applied emissions trading schemes and provide our observations related to this question. We develop the premise that emission trading is not reliable by itself to stimulate RES and EUEE investments. We recognize that there is a profound difference between emission trading as defined in UNFCCC and the EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS) and that the latter is much more limited. In the current paper, we place a focus on the EU ETS as currently applied and then make a case of integrating green and white certificates in the EU ETS1. We relate our suggestions to increasingly used market-based policy tools for the promotion of RES and EUEE (namely green certificates for renewable electricity and, more recently, tradable 'white' certificates for energy savings). The paper has the following structure. First we provide a brief overview of European and American experiences with emission trading, green and white certificates. We discuss possible ways to increase the uptake of EUEE and RES projects in the framework of emission trading, the advantages of integration of green and white certificates in emission trading and possible ways to achieve such integration. Ideas for the practical implementation of integration are discussed, such as one- or two-way fungibility between project-based green and white certificates and the EU ETS and the concept of 'set-aside' quota for EUEE and RES within national allocation plans is elaborated.