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The Ministry of Finance of South Africa has decided to postpone the implementation of a carbon tax by six months, from 1 January 2019 to 1 June 2019, due to the concerns of business and labour during the parliamentary hearings. The Ministry plans to align the budgeting system and the carbon tax, by imposing a higher tax rate as a penalty for CO2 emissions above the carbon budget.

The carbon tax level would be set at ZAR 120/tCO2eq (US$10/tCO2eq). The project was first proposed in 2010, has been postponed at least three times but came back on the agenda as part of broader tax changes aimed at improving state revenues. A second draft carbon tax bill was released in December 2017. The new carbon tax would impact 1,000 to 1,500 companies and cover 75% of domestic CO2 emissions. Companies could benefit from tax breaks and progressive increases in the early years, paying ZAR 6 to ZAR 48 per tonne (US$0.5-4.1/tCO2eq) in the first phase. In addition, total tax-free allowances could be as high as 95% in the first phase until 2022.

The introduction of a carbon tax is expected to help South Africa meet its Paris Agreement pledge to halve CO2 emissions by 2030, when they should peak between 398 and 614 MtCO2eq. Under its nationally-determined contribution (NDC), South Africa committed to limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which should peak in 2020-2025, plateau until 2035 and decline as of 2036. Large emitters, such as state-owned power utility Eskom, mining companies and steel groups, are fiercely opposed to this tax, which would erode their profits and increase electricity prices.

The European Commission has approved a 6-year extension of the support scheme on biogas in Luxembourg to help achieving the country’s environmental goals. The objective of the feed-in tariff scheme is to ensure a stable remuneration for biogas plants, which produce biogas from biomass and inject their gas in the natural gas network.

The French State Council (Conseil d’Etat, the highest administrative court in France) has cancelled the April 2017 decree on the closure of the Fessenheim nuclear power plant, considering that the decision was illegal since the plant’s operator EDF did not form a request for shutting down the plant.

The government of Poland is to auction around 1GW of new onshore wind power generation capacity in November. The maximum price for the 15-year contracts will be capped at PLZ 350/MWh (€81/MWh). Another wind tender is expected to occur in 2019 and it may include the country first offshore project.

The India government has invited tenders seeking bids for 18 captive coal blocks to non-power plants. Nine of them, representing reserves of up to 2 Gt, will be auctioned to private companies, while the other 9 blocks are to be auctioned to state-owned companies and account for reserves of around 1 Gt. Among the blocks for auction is the 342 Mt Dahegaon Dhapewada in Maharashtra,…

Ørsted has signed with CSBC, Taiwan Shipbuilding Corporation, formerly known as China Shipbuilding Corporation, a contract to supply part of the foundation pin-piles of the first 900MW from the Changhua offshore wind projects in Taiwan. Each pin-piles is 90 meters long. Formosa Heavy Industries will also provide foundation pin-piles for the project,…

Eskom, the national electricity company in South Africa, has released a draft of its Transmission Development Plan (TDP) for 2019 to 2028. The company, which has expanded the its power grid by over 700 km of line over the past year, plans to extend the South African electricity network by an additional 6,500 km of new transmission lines.