Rising CO2 right prices signal irreversible post-lignite course

Higher CO2 emission right costs, forecast to rise even further over the next few years, and this trend’s growing cost for power utility PPC’s lignite-fired power stations, highlight the country’s irreversible course towards the post-lignite era.

CO2 emission right costs have climbed to levels of about 30 euros per ton, the highest since 2006, Nikos Mantzaris, policy analyst at The Green Tank, an independent, non-profit environmental think tank, noted yesterday during a presentation of a new report, by the think tank, on Just Transition, the EU policy to end lignite dependence in Europe.

CO2 emission right prices will increase further over the next five years to reach levels of 35 to 40 euros per ton, sector experts have projected, Mantzaris said.

Stricter CO2 emission right regulations to be implemented by the European Commission in 2021 will push prices even higher, Mantzaris supported.

This upward trajectory of CO2 emission right costs is weighing heavy on PPC. Energy minister Costis Hatzidakis has estimated that PPC’s CO2-related costs in 2020 will amount to at least 300 million euros, a repeat of last year.

PPC has already made moves to restrict its lignite-fired generation for the grid. “The downward trend became even steeper following a full decarbonization decision announced [by the government] in September, 2019, which led, in May, 2020, to lignite covering just 6 percent of electricity demand on the grid, a historic low,” according to the latest Green Tank report.

For the first time in seven decades, not a single lignite-fired power station in Greece’s west Macedonia region operated on May 20 this year, while, between June 7 and 9, all the country’s lignite-fired power stations did not operate for 40 hours, the report noted.