RWE welcomes the decision of the European Commission, who have concluded an in-depth investigation into the GB Capacity Market and found that it is compatible with the EU State aid rules and guidelines. The company is looking forward to the full reinstatement of payments under the Capacity Market as soon as possible, including deferred payments for Delivery Year 2018/2019 which hitherto have been suspended.
In November 2018 the General Court of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in favour of Tempus Energy, against the European Commission, annulling the Commission’s State aid approval for the Capacity Market. Following this there has been a ‘standstill period’ on the Capacity Market which prevented the Government from making any capacity payments under existing agreements. During this period, holders of capacity agreements continued to meet their obligations.
Today, the Commission concluded that it did not find any evidence that the scheme would put demand response operators or any other capacity providers at a disadvantage with respect to their participation in the scheme. It also notes that the UK has committed to implementing certain improvements to the scheme for the future.
Roger Miesen, Chief Executive Officer of RWE Generation, states: ”We are very pleased that the EU has concluded the investigation into the Capacity Market and as a result the mechanism will be fully reinstated and deferred payments backdated. The conventional power market in Europe remains extremely challenging with large scale plants operating for shorter periods of time to support the transition to a low carbon energy system.”
RWE is committed to supporting power sector decarbonisation, with an ambition to be carbon neutral by 2040.
