Brussels rejects Greek proposal for Green Pool model

The European Commission has rejected a Greek proposal for a Green Pool model intended to keep green-energy PPA prices at competitive levels for the country’s energy-intensive industries.

Though Brussels’ Directorate-General for Competition has yet to announce its rejection of the plan, it informed the Greek energy ministry of its decision late last week, energypress sources informed.

Evaggelos Mytilineos, President and chief executive of the Mytilineos group, expressed his disappointment over the decision during a TV interview on CNBC.

“Unfortunately, on Friday, we heard the bad news that the Green Pool plan, which is a combination of a carbon exemption and support for energy-intensive industries, has been rejected by the European Commission after a year of negotiations. Every country, every economy, is trying to achieve economies of scale. It’s really difficult,” Mytilineos commented.

Negotiations on the Green Pool plan began soon after the Greek government had forwarded its proposal to the Brussels authority in September, 2021.

The European Commission is believed to have rejected the plan on the grounds that it could be regarded as a tool subsidizing electricity generated by fossil fuels.

Industrial players push ahead with Green Pool plan details

Industrial players are moving full steam ahead to help shape a finalized Green Pool model whose purpose will be to keep green-energy PPA prices at competitive levels for the country’s energy-intensive industries, energypress sources have informed.

The new government to emerge from the general election’s second round of voting on June 25 should be be handed a Green Pool plan ready for consultation. The plan is expected to be fine-tuned and finalized by September or October before it is forwarded to the European Commission for approval.

Brussels has offered its tentative approval of the plan but details that emerged following negotiations still need to be shaped and incorporated into the Green Pool’s finalized version.

Though developments have remained stagnant at political and institutional levels as a result of the general election procedure’s two rounds of voting, industrial consumers, who will represent the bulk of the Green Pool, have tasked the Grant Thornton consultancy group with studying plan details, including the share of cost for participants.

The state, according to the plan’s current shape, would cover 85 percent of the Green Pool’s cost, while market participants would cover the other 15 percent. If cost-related changes are eventually made, they will not be dramatic and could be revised for an 80-20 division.

Green Pool talks for PPA price containment enter third round

Local authorities are striving for imminent approval, by the European Commission, of the Green Pool, intended to contain price levels of prospective green-energy power purchase agreements (PPAs) established between industrial producers and energy producers, so that it may be implemented early in 2024.

Negotiations between Greece’s energy ministry and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition, launched roughly a year ago, have now entered a third round of talks.

It began early this year and is now taking place as talks between local industrial players and RES producers for the country’s first ever PPAs have ripened.

The process continued this month with a Greek response to a new set of questions forwarded by Brussels.

A recent exemption of bilateral contracts from wholesale market caps has paved the way for the establishment of PPAs.

Authorities are striving for Brussels’ imminent approval of the Green Pool so that it may be implemented early in 2024, a year during which the pool is expected to be eased into the system as a pilot program before green-energy quantities supplied to industrial energy users become considerably bigger.