We provide comprehensive solutions for climate compliance and streamlined, efficient processes at the lowest possible cost
BACKGROUND
What is EUETS and is my company affected?
In the European Union installations (power, chemical or manufacturing plants) that exceed the capacity threshold defined in the 2003/87/EC Directive Annex I are – by definition – members of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. Member installations need to monitor and report their greenhouse gas (in most cases carbon-dioxide) emissions. These plants also need to submit EU allowances (so called EUAs) every year to cover their reported emissions. To some extent, such allowances can be applied for from the European Commission (through the local Authorities), but most of the time allowance purchase from the market is also necessary.
The capacity threshold that determines, whether a company would be included in the EUETS, may vary depending on the type of the industry. The most common case is that those plants are governed by the scheme, that have installed energy producing units (boilers, kilns, furnaces etc.) with a total built-in thermal capacity exceeding 20 MWth. Other capacity thresholds specific to certain industries (e.g. daily clinker production for cement etc.) are also in place.
It is important to note that EUETS membership is not optional: if a company does not fulfill its EUETS related obligations, rough penalties, nevertheless a plant shutdown can be enforced by the Authorities.
For more information on how EUETS works, visit this page. If you are uncertain whether EUETS affects You, we are happy to help you find out.
IMPORTANT NOTICE
EUETS most of the time costs a lot of money to operators. The reason for this is simple: the available quantity of allowances decreases year by year leading to a lower supply thus higher price. EUETS membership may cost up to several million euros to a single operator annually, depending on the industrial sector, its emission levels and other factors. It is absolutely vital therefore to be informed and prepared to make the right decisions. We are delighted to guide your company through the jungle of emissions trading.
EUETS members (aka operators) have various obligations in order to be legally compliant, and Interzona is capable and experienced to do all of such tasks, as described bellow:
designing a streamlined carbon-dioxide (or other greenhouse gas) monitoring system according to the relevant EU and national legislation;
managing the entire GHG permitting procedure from authoring the initial permit to any consecutive amendment;
creating annual emission reports;
providing full client support during the third-party verification of emission reports;
creating free allowance applications and the corresponding monitoring methodology plan;
providing full client support during the third-party verification of the free allowance applications;
creating position and quota tax payment scenarios – emission and allocation forecasts – and supporting their integration into the company’s decision making procedures to achieve the lowest possible cost of compliance;
managing regulatory negotiations incl. participation on mandatory site visits, permit and allowance application related communication;
managing ETS module and transaction log account modifications, other administrative duties of the installation’s operator;
keeping track of all other deadlines and obligations;
holding trainings and workshops to ensure an effective knowledge sharing.
THE ALL-IN-ONE SOLUTION
Outsourcing of your CO2 activites
Although Interzona is ready to provide any subset of the above mentioned services, most of its clients assign their complete “carbon business” to Interzona and choose our full outsourcing service that includes all of the above. This enables the operators to focus on their core business while remain compliant at the lowest possible cost.
OTHER INTERZONA SERVICES
Emission reduction project development
Emission reduction project development was a success story of the late 2000s, and is now waiting for better times to come, a new legal framework to be developed. The Kyoto Protocol in the past enabled investors to finance projects with real benefits for the climate: during their lifecycle, these projects generated greenhouse gas reduction units that were not only valuable for the sake of our planet, but also because EUETS operators were able to use them against their emissions. As the Kyoto protocol-defined commitment period is over, only voluntary carbon schemes remained available with no linking to the real demand, the EUETS. This voluntary market is currently struggling from this low demand and even lesser carbon prices, therefore it is advised for any investor with a eligible project idea to wait until the a new, Kyoto-like regime would be implemented. This is supposed to be done in the next 5 years.
General system design
Interzona has strong process improvement and IT roots, hence our devotion in streamlined, computer aided processes. Even in the era of ERP systems and AI, many workflows are still not automated, but Excel tables are being copy-pasted and crunched. Keeping in mind the platform limitations, we are pleased to have the opportunity to ease the pain of our clients by designing flexible, small-scale Excel / VBA / database solutions to support their specific yet unaddressed needs.
