GCEL and Energy Valley Platform, 15 October 2012

At the invitation of Energy Valley, GCEL was involved in organising a special symposium on 'Energy and Law – Markets and Sustainability' on 15 October 2012 at the Dairy Campus in Goutum, Friesland. The symposium aimed at presenting the members of Energy Valley (governments and industries) with recent developments in energy law and how this could impact energy developments in the North of the Netherlands.

For this purpose the organisers invited some lawyers working in private practice and the energy industry to take a seat in an expert panel and to comment on the papers presented by the researchers of GCEL. The presentations covered a wide range of topics.

After an introduction and welcome of Paulien Kooistra of Energy Valley, Prof. Dr. Martha Roggenkamp started by giving an introduction to energy law and the activities of GCEL. Thereafter Prof. Dr. Hans Vedder who gave a short overview of competition law on energy contracts.

Subsequently, Hannah Kruimer LL.M discussed the principle of non-discriminatory access to transmission grids and the circumstances a transmission system operator would be in the position to treat different user groups in a different way. Hannah Müller LL.M then continued by presenting the obstacles involved in designing a legal framework for developing offshore wind energy, including offshore grid regulation.

After that Daisy Tempelman LL.M discussed another sustainable energy development, i.e. the introduction of biogas. She presented some legal highlights of green gas injection into the existing gas grid. The next two sessions concentrated on legal instruments aimed at reducing CO2 emissions.

Dr. Avelien Haan-Kamminga and Marijn Holwerda LL.M first discussed the legal framework on Carbon Capture Storage and then presented some suggestions on how to deal with long term liability.

The last speaker was Dr. Edwin Woerdman who introduced the topic 'emission trading' and the pros and cons of emissions trading versus CO2 taxation. The symposium was concluded with some drinks.