The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Regulations 2005

Applications to surrender a greenhouse gas emissions permit

16.—(1) Where an operator has ceased carrying out in an installation all of the Schedule 1 activities authorised by a greenhouse gas emissions permit in relation to that installation, the operator shall apply to the regulator to surrender the permit.

(2) An application under paragraph (1) shall be made before the expiry of a period of one month beginning on the date on which the operator ceased to carry out the activity or activities in the installation to which the greenhouse gas emissions permit relates or by the date of entry into force of approved NAP regulations in relation to the first scheme phase, whichever is the later.

(3) Paragraph (1) shall not apply where—

(a) an approved national allocation plan provides for all allowances allocated under these Regulations in respect of any installation in which a Schedule 1 activity is no longer carried out to continue to be issued to the operator of such installation during the scheme phase to which the approved national allocation plan relates; or

(b) an approved national allocation plan provides that, if conditions specified in that plan are met, an operator which ceases to carry out a Schedule 1 activity in an installation may retain the allowances, or a proportion of those allowances, allocated in respect of the installation under these Regulations and the operator has, before the expiry of a period of one month beginning on the date on which the operator ceased to carry out the Schedule 1 activities or of the date on which the approved NAP Regulations in relation to the scheme phase for which the allowances are allocated enter into force, whichever is the later, made an application to retain its allocation or a proportion of its allocation under regulation 24(1).

(4) An application under paragraph (1) shall, subject to paragraph (5), be accompanied by the fee prescribed in respect of the application in Schedule 5, and shall contain the operator’s telephone number and postal address and, if different, any address to which correspondence relating to the application should be sent.

(5) Where an application under paragraph (1) relates to an offshore installation, the fee prescribed in Schedule 5 in respect of the application shall be payable within the period of 28 days beginning on the date on which the regulator serves a notice on the operator requesting payment of the fee.

(6) Where an application is duly made under paragraph (1), the regulator shall within two months give the operator and, where the surrender relates to an installation included in a pool in accordance with regulation 27, the appropriate authority, notice of the surrender of its greenhouse gas emissions permit (“a notice of surrender”) and the notice shall take effect, subject to regulation 32(10), on the date specified in the notice.

(7) A notice of surrender of the permit shall require the operator, in relation to the scheme year in which the notice of surrender takes effect, to—

(a) except where a notice of surrender relates to an excluded installation which was an excluded installation for the whole of the scheme year up to the date on which the notice is served, submit to the regulator by the date specified in the notice a report specifying the reportable emissions from the beginning of the scheme year in which the notice of surrender is served until the date on which the notice of surrender is served (excluding any period for which the installation was an excluded installation) and to ensure that such report is verified in accordance with the relevant monitoring and reporting conditions; and

(b) by the date specified in the notice surrender allowances equal to—

(i) the reportable emissions specified in a report referred to in sub-paragraph (a);

(ii) where an operator has failed to comply with a condition of a greenhouse gas emissions permit imposed pursuant to regulation 10(3) in respect of the last scheme year for which the date for surrendering allowances in accordance with that condition has passed, the annual reportable emissions in respect of which the operator failed to comply with that condition in that year;

(iii) where a notice of surrender is served in a scheme year in which an error in the report submitted by an operator under a monitoring and reporting condition in relation to any earlier scheme year has been discovered, the annual reportable emissions in respect of which, as a result of that error, the operator failed to comply with the condition of a greenhouse gas emissions permit imposed pursuant to regulation 10(3) in respect of the scheme year to which the error relates;

(iv) where a supplementary decision has been made under regulation 25(2) or (7), the total number of allowances which on the date on which the notice of surrender is served have been issued in respect of the installation which would not have been issued if the statement referred to in regulation 25(1)(a) or 25(7)(a) had not been false or misleading; and

(v) where an operator has failed to comply with paragraph (1), the total number of allowances which on the date on which the notice of surrender is served have been issued in respect of the installation which would not have been issued if the operator had complied with paragraph 16(1).

(8) The report referred to in paragraph (7)(a) shall be prepared and verified in accordance with the monitoring and reporting conditions in the greenhouse gas emissions permit to which the application to surrender relates.

(9) From the date on which the notice of surrender takes effect, the greenhouse gas emissions permit shall cease to have effect to authorise the carrying out of a Schedule 1 activity but any conditions of the permit shall continue to have effect so far as they are not superseded by the requirements of the notice pursuant to paragraph (7) until the regulator certifies either that the requirements of paragraph (7) and any conditions of the greenhouse gas emissions permit imposed pursuant to regulation 10(3) have been complied with or that there is no reasonable prospect of further allowances being surrendered by the operator in respect of the installation to which the notice relates.

(10) From the scheme year following the scheme year in which the notice of surrender takes effect, for the purposes of assessing compliance with a condition of the permit imposed pursuant to regulation 10(3), the reportable emissions of the installation, before any increase in accordance with regulation 10(4), shall be deemed to be zero.

(11) Except where paragraph (12) applies, where the regulator certifies in accordance with paragraph (9) that there is no reasonable prospect of further allowances being surrendered by the operator it shall notify the registry administrator.

(12) Where the regulator certifies in accordance with paragraph (9) that there is no reasonable prospect of further allowances being surrendered by the operator because the operator holding account has been closed in accordance with Article 17(1) of the Registries Regulation, regulation 39 shall apply as if the failure to surrender sufficient allowances to comply with any conditions of the greenhouse gas emissions permit imposed pursuant to regulation 10(3) in a previous scheme year prior to the date on which the operator holding account is closed, were a further failure to comply with a condition imposed pursuant to regulation 10(3).

(13) The requirements specified in a notice of surrender pursuant to paragraph (7)(a) shall be treated as if they were monitoring and reporting conditions.

(14) The requirements specified in a notice of surrender pursuant to paragraph (7)(b) shall be treated as if they were conditions of the greenhouse gas emissions permit imposed pursuant to regulation 10(3) and the number of allowances required to be surrendered by the notice of surrender were the annual reportable emissions of the installation in respect of the scheme year to which the notice relates.

(15) Where an installation fails to comply with the requirements of a notice of surrender included pursuant to paragraph (7), the regulator shall notify the registry administrator.

(16) The regulator may, by notice to the operator, require him to furnish such further information specified in the notice, within the period so specified, as the regulator may require for the purpose of determining an application under this regulation.

(17) Where a notice is served on an operator under paragraph (16) for the purpose of calculating the period of two months mentioned in paragraph (6), no account shall be taken of the period beginning with the date on which the notice is served and ending on the date on which the information specified in the notice is furnished.