Technical workshops on the free allocation rules for phase 4 of the EU ETS

Between 31 January and 15 March 2019, the European Commission held technical workshops in eight Member States on the free allocation rules and as a preparation to the big data collection exercise that every installation in the EU ETS will have to perform in order to be eligible for free allocation. The 1-day workshops covered all the details of the free allocation rules including National Implementation Measures (NIMs) process, benchmark updates and monitoring, reporting, verification and accreditation (MRVA) requirements. Some practical examples were used to demonstrate how to identify a number of sub-installations and to fill-in the required data templates.

The revision of the ETS Directive for 2021-2030 has modified the rules for allocating free allowances to industry, laid down in the Commission Delegated Regulation on free allocation rules 2019/331 (adopted on 19 December 2018 and published in the Official Journal on 27 February 2019).

The revised EU ETS Directive has provided the framework for a sound data collection exercise based on the period from 2014-2018. The operators have to submit the data until 30 May 2019 to the Competent Authorities. The Competent Authorities will have until 30 September 2019 to submit their National Implementation Measures (NIMs) to the Commission.

The data collection carried out prior to the allocation periods of the phase 4 serves the purposes of determining the level of free allocation and the benchmark values. To facilitate the data collection exercise, the workshops offered a presentation of the data templates and work on the case studies how to fill-in the data on production, emissions and energy flows at sub-installation level. Detailed data at sub-installation level need to be collected for determining the level of free allocation (Article 11(1) of the EU ETS Directive).

The workshops brought together the regional groups of countries and were prepared in cooperation with the Member States competent authorities. They took place in Tallinn (31 January 2019), Utrecht (5 February 2019), Paris (7 February 2019), Berlin (11 February 2019), Madrid (12 February 2019), Rome (15 February 2019), Stockholm (13 March 2019) and Sofia (15 March 2019).

Over 150 participants, including industry and verifiers, from 30 EU/EEA countries have attended the events in a dynamic atmosphere with many practical country-specific and sector-specific questions.

Presentations

• Workshop on the free allocation rules for EU ETS phase 4, DG CLIMA
• Workshops for Competent Authorities on allocation rules for phase 4
• Benchmarks Update
• FAR workshops – MRVA
• FAR workshops – case studies with solutions
• Conclusion/next steps

Collection of frequently asked questions raised during the workshops and addressed to the NIMs helpdesk

• Version 2 updated on 22 July 2019

More information

For more information, please contact: CLIMA-POLICY-EXPERT-GROUPec [dot] europa [dot] eu (CLIMA-POLICY-EXPERT-GROUP[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu)

Location

Sofia