Kyoto flexible mechanisms encourage clean energy investments
Lake Ostrowo wind farm shows how the Kyoto Protocol encourages investment in new markets for clean energy – and reduces greenhouse gas emissions
Poland is fresh ground for wind power, but is has major potential. By 2010 the Polish government would like to see 2,000 MW of wind turbines turning around the country.
The investment tools of the Kyoto Protocol made it even more attractive to construct the wind farm at Lake Ostrowo in Northern Poland. The wind farm was initiated as a Joint Implementation project.
JI projects generate emission reduction units (ERU) in transition economies that can be used by industrialised countries to help them meet their own Kyoto target.
In the case of Lake Ostrowo the Danish government allocated just over 336,000 ERUs (Emissions Reduction Units) to the project, making it attractive for the Danish company DONG Energy to develop the wind farm. Each ERU is equivalent to 1 tonne of carbon dioxide.
“The fact that we could initiate the wind farm as a Joint Implementation project made it more attractive for us, because it erased the largest economic risks,” says Arne Levorsen from the Renewables division of DONG Energy. The company has been exploring the Polish market for wind power since the beginning of the millennium.
Polish law has also placed an obligation on all energy producers to supply 10% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. A wind farm like Lake Ostrowo can earn ‘green certificates’ for every unit of electricity it supplies, adding to the income from the project.
Learn more about wind power in Poland
Facts
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Joint Implementation
JI projects generate emission reduction units (ERU) in transition economies, including former soviet states and Eastern European countries, that can be used by industrialised countries to help them meet their own Kyoto target.
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