Germany's environment minister has drawn up a new draft national allocation plan for the second CO_2 trading period 2008-2012 which ditches the generous privileges for lignite plant contained in the initial version of NAP2 of June 2006. Lignite plant operators, in particular RWE Power and Vattenfall Europe Mining and Generation, had been expecting to get guarantees under which new power plant would have received the full CO_2 certificates allocation of the old and inefficient plant they replaced for four years, followed by another 10 years of full allocation according to need. New plant that does not replace others would have received a full allocation according to need for 14 years. But the European Commission took issue with these arrangements and bowing to the pressure, the ministry has switched to a benchmark system. It applies two fuel-specific benchmarks for existing and new plant in the energy sector: the benchmark of 750 gramms CO_2/kWh applies to coal and lignite power stations, in line with the specific CO_2 emissions of coal from new coal plant.
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