To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Verma on
16 June (WA 24) on energy prices, in the light of the change in language used by the
European Commission between its draft and final state aid guidance to reduce the distinction
between "mature" and "immature", and "established" and "less established" technologies,
what steps they will take to ensure that the current proposals (1) to introduce auctioning
of Contracts for Difference (CfDs) for only one particular group of technologies in
October 2014, and (2) to create an enduring regime which allocates CfDs in different
ways to different groups of technologies beyond 2017, will not run contrary to the
new guidelines, introduced after the commencement of their consultation process.
<p>The EU ‘Guidelines on State aid for environmental protection and energy 2014-2020',
which were adopted in principle on 9 April 2014, set out a requirement to introduce
technology neutral competition for renewable technologies, including a transitional
phase, with a number of derogations. In May 2014 the Government confirmed proposals
to move straight to competition for more established technologies. For less established
technologies, if there is insufficient budget in a CfD allocation round to satisfy
all bids, a competitive auction will apply. We believe our proposals are consistent
with the guidelines.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>
