� ARTICLE / MAKALE ı<f rn Ü Hlfl\MWıl w�ıırn Co eneration, Wasre recoven, 'Renewa6(es 8t Oti•site eneration DiREN has just got an analysis role; it has less than 45 days to give its comments. DRIRE will then put the request into a regular administrative format, making it suitable for the Prefet to accept it. The prefet will then nominate an 'enqueteur public', a sort of control officer, often a retired civil servant who doesn't necessarily have technical knowledge but who will guarantee the regularity of the consultation process. At the start of the consultation period, posters at the townhall, on the site and the neighbourhood will be displayed to inform the public. This consultation process cannot take place during holidays, a constraint that project managers must bear in mind (some projects have been delayed by over 2 months). ■ ever this is now usually set contractually). For example, who would be responsible for excessive noise levels and which property limit should be laken into account for measurement? There are also administrative obstacles linked to a specific sector e.g. the obligation for hospitals and some buildings open to the public to have emergency power using a storable fuel, ruling out gas-fired installations (which is not the case in other European countries). Building permit During one month, the control officer must be available for information requests and claims against the project. He will then have one month to issue a report. A decision on the license to operate must then take place within 3 months after receipt of the Control officer report. An important issue in parallel to the DAE, 9 days before or after deposit of the request, projeci managers must request a license to build ('permis de construire'). Entailing 3 months delay, it can be a constraint for small installations - under the declaration procedure -but not really for bigger schemes. This license can be granted upon conditions that can add important costs to the original budget. For example a lump sump, a secondary containment, an anti-missile wall (dyke) or continuous measurement of CO and 02 emissions. The additional costs must not be overlooked: continuous measurement imposed on a gas turbine project has added over FF 1 million (EURO 152 450)! Given the important delays occurred in the administrative phase, planners have 2 solutions: ■ Wait for the official approval of their projeci and loose between 6 and 9 months but being sure that there will not be any additional costs; or ■ Start the administrative procedure simultaneously with the equipment order but with a major uncertain budgetary item. lf costs rise, after the approval 2 alternatives are possible: the project is dead. . . or the client has to accept the new costs in the bili (halt do). for cogeneration is the duration of the tax exemption: it lasts only 5 years (out of 12 for the buy-back contract) and after these 5 years, an important drop often occurs in the profitability of the installation. ■ Conformity certificate in parallel to the DAE, in order to be a qualified cogenerator, the installation must alsa be granted a conformity certificate by the DRIRE, taking into account the installation performances. ünce obtained it allows the cogeneration installation to seli its electricity to EDF (who is then obliged to buy it) and benefit from fiscal advantages such as a lower gas tax. These taxes are managed by the customs administration and this same administration will control performances of the installation, legally once a year. This new status and the accompanying fiscal advantages are quite recent; therefore there is no real feedback yet on the way controls are done and their real frequency. An important issue for cogeneration is the duration of the tax exemption: it lasts only 5 years (out of 12 for the buy-back contract) and after these 5 years, an important drop often occurs in the profitability of the installation. Cogenerators usually complains about this limited exemption, in particular industrial cogenerators that point to the permanent tax The implementation of a 'general purpose' law on industrial installations seems to be sometimes awkward when it comes to schemes built under special contractual arrangements. As said earlier, operators often retain ownership of the installation itself whereas the rest of the industrial installation has another owner and had previously been subject to an authourisation may ask for a new specific authorisation, only for the cogeneration scheme, or for a revision of the overall authorisation. in the latter case, this might cause problems of liability sharing between the owner of the estate and the owners of the installation, howexemption for coal used in centralised power production. An important issue is also the delay within which the cogeneration projeci has to come into operation: 24 months. The number of cases to be dealt with by EDF has increased and long delays due to EDF have occurred. it is not entirely clear whether these delays will not be taken into account when calculating the 24 months period (and the access to the previous conditions for surplus electricity purchase). E-COGEtlERATION WORLD & Renewoble Energy iL
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