26.3.2018   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 112/11

1.

Is an installation which produces a product the production of which is not one of the activities referred to in Annex I to Directive 2003/87/EC (1) (such as, in this case, the production of sulphur) and which, at the same time, carries on the activity of ‘combustion of fuels in installations with a total rated thermal input exceeding 20 MW’ that is subject to the emission trading scheme pursuant to Annex I to Directive 2003/87/EC, an electricity generator within the meaning of Article 3(u) of Directive 2003/87/EU, in the case where a secondary facility within the same installation also produces electricity for that installation and a (small) proportion of that electricity is released for consideration to the public electricity network?

2.

If the first question is answered in the affirmative:

If an installation as described in Question 1 is an electricity generator within the meaning of Article 3(u) of Directive 2003/87/EC, is that installation eligible for an allocation for heat under Commission Decision 2011/278/EU (2) even in the case where the heat satisfies the conditions laid down in Article 3(c) of Decision 2011/278/EU but does not fall within any of the categories referred to in Article 10a(1), third subparagraph, (3) and (4) of Directive 2003/87/EC — heat from the combustion of waste gases for the production of electricity, district heating and high-efficiency cogeneration?

3.

If, on the basis of the answers to the first two questions, the heat produced in the installation at issue is eligible for an allocation:

Does the CO2 released into the atmosphere as part of the conditioning of natural gas (in the form of sour gas) in the ‘Claus process’, whereby the CO2 inherent in natural gas is separated from the gas mixture, constitute an emission which, for the purposes of the first sentence of Article 3(h) of Commission Decision 2011/278/EU, occurs as a result of the process referred to in Article 3(h)(v)?

4.

If Question 3 is answered in the affirmative, on the basis of which benchmark is the allocation of free emissions allowances to be carried out in the case where an installation subject to the emission trading scheme satisfies both the defining conditions of a heat benchmark sub-installation and the defining conditions of a process emissions sub-installation? Does entitlement to an allocation on the basis of the heat benchmark take priority over entitlement to an allocation for process emissions or does entitlement to an allocation for process emissions take precedence over the heat benchmark and the fuel benchmark because the latter allocation is more specific to the case in question?