Global Trade Alert

 On 1 December 2015, the European Commission announced in a press release that it had approved state aid from the United Kingdom for the conversion of the coal-powered Lynemouth power plant to a biomass power plant.
The budget of the project is estimated at 0.8 billion GBP but the exact state aid contribution has not yet been specified. However, the government will support the project until 2027.
According to the EC, "The beneficiary will receive support from the UK Government-owned counterparty, the Low Carbon Contracts Company Ltd, for the electricity generated by the notified project. The notified measure favours the generation of electricity from renewable sources (in this case biomass) by the selected beneficiary. Electricity is widely traded between Member States. The notified measure is therefore assumed to distort competition on the electricity market and affect trade between the Member States." (letter from the EC to the UK, 19.02.2015, par. 44).
A state measure in the GTA database is assessed solely in terms of the extent to which its implementation affects the extent of discrimination against foreign commercial interests. On this metric, the state aid proposed here is discriminatory.