{"id":1643526,"date":"2022-09-16T16:53:20","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T20:53:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1643526"},"modified":"2022-09-16T16:53:59","modified_gmt":"2022-09-16T20:53:59","slug":"a-look-at-europes-plan-to-tackle-winter-energy-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-look-at-europes-plan-to-tackle-winter-energy-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"A Look at Europe\u2019s Plan to Tackle Winter Energy Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fa-look-at-europes-plan-to-tackle-winter-energy-crisis%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1643526&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>By Kate Abnett<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"caps\">BRUSSELS<\/span>  \u2013     The European Union\u2019s executive proposed emergency measures on Wednesday aimed at pulling down surging gas and power prices that are stoking inflation, hampering industrial activity and inflicting sky-high bills upon citizens ahead of winter.<\/p>\n<p>At the start of this month, Russia said it would not reopen its main Nord Stream 1 pipeline to supply Europe \u2013 the latest in a string of supply cuts, which Moscow blames on Western sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>EU country governments will now negotiate the details of the proposals, possibly approving the final laws at a Sept. 30 meeting of energy ministers.  <\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s what the EU\u2019s energy crisis package contains.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"caps\">WINDFALL<\/span><span class=\"caps\">LEVY<\/span> ON <span class=\"caps\">NON<\/span>&#8211;<span class=\"caps\">GAS<\/span><span class=\"caps\">POWER<\/span><span class=\"caps\">PLANTS<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The European Commission proposals would claw back revenue from electricity generators with low running costs to raise cash for governments to spend on cushioning consumers and industry from soaring energy bills.<\/p>\n<p>In the EU system, gas plants often set the price of electricity. Non-gas fuelled power plants sell their electricity at the resulting high prices \u2013 even though they do not have to pay huge bills for gas, or coal, the price of which has also jumped.<\/p>\n<p>Brussels wants to skim off excess revenue that wind, solar, nuclear, lignite, oil, biomass and some hydropower plants make under this system.<\/p>\n<p>The measure would apply a price limit of 180 euros per megawatt hour (MWh) until March on the revenue these generators get for their power in the market. The limit would be applied after power transactions are settled, so it would not directly affect prices in Europe\u2019s exchange-traded electricity market. <\/p>\n<p>It would exclude revenues made from government subsidy schemes, and would not apply to generators whose revenues are already capped by national policies.<\/p>\n<p>The move would cap generators\u2019 revenues at less than half of current market prices \u2013 but far above the running costs of most generators affected, the Commission said. Germany\u2019s front-year electricity price was close to 500 euros\/MWh on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Countries could opt to also impose a lower national limit on revenues, so long as this still sufficiently covered generators\u2019 running costs and did hurt investment in the sector, the Commission said.<\/p>\n<p>National governments would be responsible for recouping the cash and spending it on mitigating soaring energy prices \u2013 which could include giving consumers financial incentives to use less power, lowering consumers\u2019 electricity bills, or helping them invest in energy saving measures like home insulation.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission said the proposal would raise 117 billion euros ($117 billion). Industry groups say most of Europe\u2019s wind farms do not benefit from high energy prices because they sell their power under fixed-price contracts \u2013 suggesting some generators would be less affected than others.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"caps\">PROFIT<\/span><span class=\"caps\">SHARING<\/span><span class=\"caps\">FOR<\/span><span class=\"caps\">FOSSIL<\/span><span class=\"caps\">FUEL<\/span><span class=\"caps\">FIRMS<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The EU also wants companies that have made bumper profits from selling fossil fuels at record prices to make a financial contribution to help citizens and industries.<\/p>\n<p>EU countries would introduce a temporary windfall profit levy for oil, gas, coal and refining companies. It would apply to 33% of firms\u2019 taxable surplus profits from 2022 \u2013 with surplus profits defined as those 20% above a company\u2019s average taxable profits in the last three years.<\/p>\n<p>Countries including Italy have already introduced a windfall profit tax on energy firms. The EU would put in place a minimum rate for all EU countries, but governments could choose to go higher.<\/p>\n<p>The levy would be collected by the EU country where the company\u2019s windfall profits are generated.<\/p>\n<p>The fossil fuel levy would raise around 25 billion euros, the Commission said \u2013 bringing to just over 140 billion euros the anticipated total from the EU\u2019s two measures to claw back revenues from energy firms. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"caps\">ELECTRICITY<\/span><span class=\"caps\">DEMAND<\/span><span class=\"caps\">CUT<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The EU wants to impose a mandatory target for countries to cut electricity consumption until March, to ensure Europe has enough fuel to last the colder months. <\/p>\n<p>EU countries would be required to curb their power use by 5% during the 10% of hours with the highest electricity demand each month. National governments would be responsible for designing measures to lower demand.<\/p>\n<p>EU gas storage is now 84% full, exceeding the EU\u2019s pre-winter filling target. But analysts say Europe will still need to slash gas use over winter, to avoid storage facilities running dry. <\/p>\n<p><span class=\"caps\">EMERGENCY<\/span><span class=\"caps\">LIQUIDITY<\/span><span class=\"caps\">FOR<\/span><span class=\"caps\">POWER<\/span><span class=\"caps\">FIRMS<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Commission said it was also working on plans to help energy companies facing soaring collateral needs.<\/p>\n<p>Utilities sell some power in advance to secure a certain price but must post a cash deposit with exchanges in case they default before the power is produced. Soaring power prices have meant firms must post bigger margin deposits, leaving some struggling to find the extra cash.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe will work with the market regulators to ease these problems by amending the rules on collaterals and by taking measures to limit the intra-day price volatility,\u201d Commision President Ursula von der Leyen said.<\/p>\n<p>NO <span class=\"caps\">GAS<\/span><span class=\"caps\">PRICE<\/span><span class=\"caps\">CAP<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The draft EU proposal did not include a gas price cap \u2013 an idea that has divided the bloc\u2019s member states, and which the Commission is still analysing. <\/p>\n<p>EU countries have asked Brussels to propose a cap but disagree on whether this should apply to all imported gas, pipeline flows or wholesale gas trading.<\/p>\n<p>Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark oppose a general gas price cap, warning it could leave countries struggling to attract supplies in price-competitive global markets this winter. Italy and Poland support the idea to pull down consumer bills.<\/p>\n<p>The Commission said it was still looking into an earlier plan to cap Russian gas prices. It excluded the idea from Wednesday\u2019s proposals after opposition from countries who feared Moscow would retaliate by cutting off the dwindling supplies it still sends to the EU.<\/p>\n<p>($1 = 1.0009 euros)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kate AbnettBRUSSELS \u2013 The European Union\u2019s executive proposed emergency measures on Wednesday aimed at pulling down surging gas and power prices that are stoking inflation, hampering industrial activity and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1643528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1643526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1643528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1643526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1643526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1643526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}