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E-mailOslo, 3 May 2011
Installations covered by the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme used a record amount of UN credits (CERs & ERUs) to meet their emission reduction targets last year.
Some 137 Mt of CERs and ERUs were used for compliance last year, an increase of 68% compared to 2009, according to Thomson Reuters Point Carbon’s analysis of figures published yesterday by the EU Commission. Thomson Reuters Point Carbon is the leading provider of market intelligence, news, analysis, forecasting and advisory services for the energy and environmental markets.
“The main reason for the higher usage of UN credits in 2010 is probably the EU ban on using credits derived from destroying the industrial by-product gases HFC 23 and N2O from adipic acid projects that will apply from 2013”, explained Stig Schjolset, a senior analyst with Thomson Reuters Point Carbon. “As these credits will hold zero value as compliance instruments during phase 3 of the EU ETS, many operators have probably already opted to surrender a higher amount of such credits in 2010 than would otherwise have been the case”, he added.
Germany used more credits than any other EU country in 2010, surrendering 37.6Mt of UN credits, followed by Poland and Spain with 15.7Mt each.
In sector terms, the Power and Heat sector used 83.6Mt, equivalent to 61% of the total amount of credits used for 2010 compliance, followed by the Cement, Lime and Glass sector, which used 13Mt and the Oil and Gas sector which used 12.8Mt. In total, 7.1% of last year’s emissions were covered by UN credits, up from 4.3% in 2009. The remaining 93% was covered by EU Allowances (EUAs).
Of the 137Mt of credits used, 117m were CERs, generated by the Clean Development Mechanism ( CDM), up 50% on the 78.5m CERs used in 2009, and 20m were ERUs, generated by Joint Implementation projects, up 600% on the 3.2m ERUs used in 2009.
On May 16, the European Commission will publish data on which credits have been used for compliance in 2010. Thomson Reuters Point Carbon expects this information to confirm a high use of HFC-23 and N2O-adipic acid credits last year. A second media advisory will be issued then.
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