State aid beneficiaries can qualify for financial compensation by either implementing the recommendations of the energy audit report, investing at least 50 % of the aid amount in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction projects, or reducing the carbon footprint of their electricity consumption. For the latter, unbundled GOs and PPAs fulfil the criterion.

The following industries are eligible for aid (see table below).
Veyt’s assessment reveals that state aid schemes for energy-intensive industries can influence the demand side of the GO market. Another state aid scheme, for reduced electricity levies, with similar requirements, also supports higher demand for GOs.

Currently, 17 European countries have state aid schemes for indirect emission costs in place; separately, two schemes have already expired in Austria and Lithuania (see below). Click on the country name in the table to access the state aid decision.

Below, Veyt provides country-specific data on state aid beneficiaries/installations and compensation amount received/budget allocated, where data is available. Where data is missing, the national authorities have not made the data publicly available.

Note, beneficiaries represent companies that received state aid, whereas installations denote operational facilities under the EU ETS that belong to companies. For example, one company can have ten installations. This is differentiated in each dashboard.

Domestic currency was converted into euro for Romania, Poland and Norway, using historical exchange rates from the European Central Bank, on a daily basis, averaged to a yearly value.

Veyt provides additional notes for some countries below:

Austria: The government applied for a state aid decision only covering 2022. The scheme was not prolonged afterwards. EUR 185 million was paid out to 44 beneficiaries with 76 installations.

Belgium (Flanders, Wallonia): The exact compensation amount and beneficiaries are unknown; hence, the allocated budget and the government’s estimates are used according to official sources. In Flanders, the estimated number of beneficiaries is between 65 and 80, in Wallonia, 30.

Germany: The new coalition government plans to make the state aid for indirect emission costs a permanent scheme beyond 2030 and open it to other sectors such as data centres. German state aid has specific provisions, including geographical sourcing criteria and the use of coupled GOs. Read more here. Veyt estimates that the state aid scheme for ETS costs could have been responsible for 13.2 TWh of renewable GO demand in Central-Western Europe, and 3.3 TWh in the rest of the EU/EEA in 2023. This compares against 17.6 TWh and 3.3 TWh in 2022, respectively.

Luxembourg: The compensation amount is unknown; hence, the allocated government budget is indicated.

Lithuanian state aid scheme expired in 2020. Only one company was compensated through the state aid mechanism between 2016-2021.

Netherlands: The Dutch government is working to extend the scheme beyond 2032.

Norway: Location-based accounting is used to qualify for the 30 % carbon-free electricity sourcing criterion. Per Veyt estimates that, by relying on location-based reporting, as much as 11 TWh worth of RES-E demand may be falling out of the Norwegian domestic GO market in 2024. For comparison, Norway’s own-domain RES-E GO demand for the 2023 disclosure period stood at 36.7 TWh according to the AIB statistics, increasing 53 % year-to-year. This effectively removes additional GO demand from the market, artificially suppressing GO price levels through regulatory means.