Commissioner Piebalgs welcomes the entry of a supermarket chain as a new electricity supplier in the Belgian market

Energy Commissioner, Andris Piebalgs has welcomed today the launch of Carrefour Energie EcoPlanet, a program that will make the supermarket chain a new provider in the Belgian electricity market. The Carrefour Group, one of the Partners of the Sustainable Energy Europe Campaign, is the first European retailer to sell electricity to final consumers. "I am very happy to see a completely new kind of company in the electricity market offering to final consumers an interesting product. I hope that the initiative of Carrefour will soon be followed by other companies across Europe for the benefit of all consumers", said Commissioner Piebalgs.

Carrefour Energie EcoPlanet will supply electricity produced exclusively from renewable energy sources: wind energy (62.96%), biomass or biogas (35.58%), qualitative cogeneration (1.38%) and hydraulic energy (0.07%). Carrefour will handle the administrative procedure with the customer’s current supplier and guarantees a fixed electricity rate throughout the customer’s chosen contract period.

Carrefour Energie EcoPlanet is supported by the European Commission as part of its “Sustainable Energy for Europe” programme.

The Sustainable Energy Europe 2005-2008 Campaign is a European Commission initiative in the framework of the Intelligent Energy - Europe (2003-2006) programme, which aims to raise public awareness and promote sustainable energy production and use among individuals and organisations, private companies and public authorities, professional and energy agencies, industry associations and NGOs across Europe.

More info: www.sustenergy.org

More info: www.carrefour.eu/energie