Limited Life Derogation (LLD), Article 33, operates from 1/1/16 until 31/12/23 where Large Combustion Plants (LCPs) may be exempted from compliance with the emission limit values referred to in Article 30(2). The whole of a plant must be subject to the LLD where taken. Operators must submit a declaration to the competent authority by 31 December 2013 if they wish to take the LLD, specifying the plant or plants it is to apply to: declarations after that date will not be valid. Declarations are binding with effect from 1 January 2016: an operator may withdraw a declaration at any time before then.
The LLD restricts participating plants to no more than 17,500 hours' operation starting on 1 January 2016 and ending no later than 31 December 2023. Effectively the only way for a plant to leave the LLD and change its status under the IED is to close and reopen as a new plant. In this event, the plant would be treated in the same way as a new build plant i.e. it would be subject to the Annex V part 2 ELVs set out in IED and would also be subject to BAT requirements which would be applied to new build plant.
The Article 33 derogation cannot last beyond 31 December 2023 and all derogation plants will be required to close by this date at the latest. The derogation can finish sooner than this date in the event that the plant is treated as having closed. Hence a plant which is operating under the LLD can elect to close and reopen as a new plant at any time after 1 January 2016.
(Source: UK Environment Agencies)