EU reforms on CO2 emissions set to see electricity costs rise

THE cost of electricity will increase under proposals for a huge reform of the EU’s CO2 emissions trading scheme, due to be announced today.

While the Government currently hands out free polluting permits to companies generating electricity, in the future EU member states would have to auction these.

Ireland has been one of the few EU countries that sold off some of its allocation of CO2 permits, but this amounted to less than 2% of the total and raised just enough money to pay to administer the Kyoto Protocol scheme.