Around 95 installations have been marked by the European Commission as being non-compliant for not surrendering enough carbon allowances or offsets against their emissions for last year, according to data published this week.

UK-based Teesside Integrated Iron & Steel Works, the majority of which closed down in 2015, handed in 11.7 million units against its emissions of 15.7 million tonnes last year, making it the facility with the largest shortfall.

Second largest was Romania’s coal-fired Romag Termo power station, which only surrendered 2.2 million units against 4.4 million tonnes of emissions.

There were 35 Italian facilities on the list, making them the largest segment in terms of countries, with France ranked second at 21.

The data also showed that 17 aircraft operators failed to turn in enough carbon units for last year.

The net total emissions unit shortfall for all non-compliant facilities was estimated at just under 10 million tonnes, a tiny fraction of the 1.8 billion ETS-regulated emissions last year.

Under EU rules, the penalty for not surrendering a sufficient number of allowances is typically €100 per tonne plus the cost of buying the missing units on the secondary market.

In addition, the Commission identified around 170 facilities that failed to submit emissions data in time, meaning those installations could also face fines.

Nearly 50 of them were in Portugal, with a further 34 in France.

Carbon Pulse excluded any installations listed in the data that were demarcated at being in non-compliance but that appeared to have ceased operations before 2015 or had closed their accounts with the EU emissions trading registry.

By Mike Szabo – mike@carbon-pulse.com