Green futures market opens to promote use of renewable energy sources

The Polish Power Exchange yesterday launched a green electricity futures market, with the aim of capitalizing on regulations that oblige local utilities to use a certain proportion of environmentally-friendly energy sources. "We are opening a market for utilities, which have to buy green energy and need to trade it, despite the fact that it is more than twice as expensive as conventional power," the head of the exchange, Jan Buczkowski, told a news conference. The minimum supply quota set for power produced from such renewable sources as wind, geothermal and solar powe is 2.4% at present, rising to 2.5% next year and 7.5% by 2010. Poland wants to boost the share of renewable sources in power production to bring pollution down to levels acceptable by the European Union. Poland currently produces more than 94% of its power from coal. (Reuters)