A report published by the European Wind Energy Association argues that although the EU operates a single market for other areas such as goods, capital and labour, such a system does not exist for electricity.
As a result, market rules are not designed to facilitate the integration of wind and other renewables into the grid, making them relatively more costly to exploit than other established forms of electricity generation.
EU heads of state have agreed Europe should have an internal energy market by 2014, but the EU is not on track to meet that target, EWEA said. In October the European Commission is expected to publish a report on the internal energy market
Ahead of this, EWEA said the EC needed to consider specific measures, such as the removal of subsidies for coal, gas and nuclear generation before they are removed from renewables.
The report also called for the expansion of markets to cover larger geographical areas so as to reduce the need to balance variable renewables like wind and solar.
Paul Wilczek, EWEA's senior regulatory affairs advisor on grids and internal electricity market, said: "The European wind industry strongly supports the creation of a single market in electricity. If Europe is serious about decarbonising the power sector in a cost-effective manner, it has to create a market that facilitates this transformation."
Report available at http://www.ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/reports/Internal_energy_market.pdf
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