Green credit rules in limbo

The details are still hazy of how Denmark's liberalised electricity market will work and there is increasing concern that the actual market rules -- including those for trading green power credits -- will not be ready by January 1 as planned. At least 600 million kWh of green credits are otherwise expected to hit the market from wind power generation. The Danish Energy Agency had commissioned global accountants PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to come up with a market structure. But PWC's report, issued in September, met with heavy criticism from all players except the utility sector. The wind industry branded the report as one-sided, "absurd" in some of its suggestions and weak in its economic analyses. The entire report -- it was discovered -- is based on a single meeting between PWC and the Danish electric utilities association, Danske Elværkers Forening. PWC's recommendations appear to be identical with the views of the utilities and its main concern with renewable energy was in how to prevent turbine owners from grouping into a sales monopoly. Under attack from wind industry association director, Søren Krohn, PWC threatened to sue him. Krohn responded that PWC was willing to try, but it was an odd kind of democracy being practised if involved parties were not allowed to comment on legislative proposals. He added that if a business school undergraduate had completed the report he would have failed his final examination.