REPROMO - Renewable Energy Promotion Campaign for the Realisation of Trans-national RES Projects, especially in CEEC

Existing and future market potential for RES in CEEC, Dr. Christian Epp, WIP-Munich, Germany

At the beginning, the lecturer introduced the REPROMO Campaign and the profile of the co-ordinating company, WIP – Renewable Energies. More information on those topics can be found under and .

In the second part of the lecture, a general assessment of the market potential for RES in CEEC was given. All CEE regions have significant or abundant RES resources, mainly in the fields of wind energy, biomass and geothermal. Whether or not this potential can be exploited in economically feasible actions depends on the socio-economic framework conditions for the specific action. An action has very high probability for success, if most of the following criteria is fulfilled:

Domestic technologies and local know-how is available.

A strong need for electric energy and heat exists domestically.

Independent power production faces low administrative barriers and a supportive feed-in regulation.

Since energy prices in CEEC often are below the production costs of renewable energy based systems, additional economic incentives must be found. Promising add-ons can be found within the international regime of climate change mitigation.

The project requires a dynamic driving force on the local level and and well-working alliances compiling all relevant knowledge and resources.

The project consortium has access to financial resources in the public and the private sector.

RES actions in today’s situation in CEEC can already be highly feasible if well defined and carefully targeted at a supportive framework with respect to the listed criteria.

In the last months the REPROMO consortium performed a comprehensive analysis of the CEEC markets. The following actions have been defined as the most promising at the present moment and the near future:

Biomass co-firing in conventional power plants

Production of biomass commodities

Landfill reclamation for methane gas combustion

Conversion of boiler houses for biomass feedstock (possibly including co-generation)

Intense economic activity is reported in all these four fields in various CEE regions.
All REPROMO consortium members agree that lately, the political will can be observed to improve the socio-economic framework conditions for domestic RES implementation. Driving forces for this development are the coming EU Membership which will bring with it the adoption of the RES-supportive EU legislation.

REPROMO Country	RES-E % in 1999*	RES-E % in 2010*
Czech Republic	3.8	8.0
Estonia	0.2	5.1
Hungary	0.7	3.6
Poland	1.6	7.5

*as percent of power consumption in 2000 (in both cases)

Within the CEE governments the awareness is growing for the necessity to mitigate climate change. With the decline of the market links between CEE states, fossil energy prices have risen drastically and are expected to continue to do so in the near future. Finally, CEE goverments are very aware that a boost in RES implementation will generate new export opportunities, such as green electricity, or the export commodities like wood pellets.