Sustainable Energy Law Notebook

The Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has published today a test entitled " Hvorfor er det billigere å vaske tøyet om natten? " (" Why is that cheaper to wash your clothes at night? ") , which offers readers the opportunity to test their knowledge about the possibility, procedure and conditions to change of energy provider, the tariff structure of the electricity bill or some support scheme to energy savings in favour of the household sector. This test, which certainly focuses on the Norwegian context (but as part of the EEA Agreement, Norway is implementing the EC energy legislation), underlines a very central issue in the opening of the electricity retail market to competition: final customers do not always have a clear understanding of the rights the full liberalisation of the energy market gave them. Public authorities, in particular under the initiative of regulators, are developing information tools, such as in France the website http://www.energie-info.fr/ . Bu...

On Thursday 24 September, Claude Turmes, Member of the European Parliament (EP), and recognised leader of climate and renewable energy policies at the European assembly, will address the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). This blog reported on several works of the CPUC, and I cannot be more glad to see the reflection on experience sharing and best practices in the are of regulation of renewables and energy efficiency be concretised in such a way. So, book your agenda. Here is the flyer . Claude Turmes was in particular rapporteur in the following EP legislative procedures : Directive 2009/28/EC on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources; Regulation (EC) 1099/2008 on energy statistics; European Parliament Resolution of 13 March 2008 on Global Energy Efficiency and Renewaeble Energy Fund (GEEREF); EP Resolution of 29 September 2005 on the share of renewable energy in the EU - Proposals for concrete actions; and before that the second (and former) electricty ...

Working Group III (on ‘Mitigation of Climate Change’) of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is currently preparing a Special Report on ‘Renewable EnergySources and Climate Change Mitigation’ (SRREN) . The latter will be finalised during the second half of 2010, officially adopted in December 2010, and published in 2011. Authors are meeting these days in Oslo (1-4 Sept.), after their first meeting in January in Brazil. According to its mandate, the report should provide a better understandingof: resources availability by region and the effects of climate change; the mitigation potential of renewable energy sources (RES); RES market and technological status; sustainable development goals and RES; relationship to energy security (global, regional and national); options and constraints for integration into the energy supply systems and other markets, including energy storage; costs and benefits; policy options and conditions for effectiveness (!). The scope of the report is ...