In an effort to strengthen consumer choice as well as clarify post-2020 regulations, on 30thNovember 2016 the European Commission released its vision for a new Renewable Energy Directive (REDII). However, there is one critical place where end-users, market players, environmental groups and many national governments all disagree. In article 19:2 of the draft text there is mention of a mandatory auction of Guarantees of Origin (GOs), the ‘currency’ that drives the renewable electricity market. There is considerable concern that this auction, in its current form, would take away consumer choice in the electricity market and restrict the ability to support specific renewable projects.

There is a wide range of compliance and voluntary instruments available on the electricity market to promote the generation of renewable electricity across Europe, such as Feed-In tariffs (FITs),  feed-in premiums (FIPs) and investment grants. While support schemes for renewables can stimulate growth in terms of production, the demand-driven focus is lost. This tends to lead to market distortion, resulting in an inefficient allocation of renewables (e.g. new solar production in regions with a low radiation input). Moreover they tend to have an impact on grid balancing and other regulatory frameworks as such EU support schemes have varying degrees of inefficiency.  Moving towards market-based support schemes provides more efficient ways to use tax money.

The AIB, together with its members, has compiled a detailed consideration of the Guarantee of Origin scheme in the “Clean Energy for all Europeans” package. It is taking a close look at the proposals in the upcoming RED II directive and providing comments on among other things the auctioning of GOs and GOs for gas.

On the 11th of April Reconnect and RECS International organized a seminar on the procurement of renewables by the corporate industry. The seminar took place in Arnhem, the Netherlands, and was attended by some 30 people from various backgrounds: government, NGO, energy providers and commodity traders.

From Monday 20 to Wednesday 22 of March the annual RECs Market Meeting took place at the Krasnapolsky hotel in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This year’s event, entitled “Consumers driving the energy transition”, focused on end-consumers' increasing influence on the global electricity markets. With the use of attribute tracking systems electricity end-users are able to claim the use of renewable electricity and direct investments in electricity to the production of their choice. 

An important networking event during the RECs Market Meeting is the evening dinner party on 21 March, which is exclusively for registered delegates. The dinner party is sponsored by ECOHZ. ...

Less than three weeks left to the seventh edition of the RECs Market Meeting. This year we have seen a growing interest in the event  and an impressive diversity of backgrounds of people attending the conference.  We are happy to see that we have delegates from around the world and from all positions in the market: from The US to Europe, Mali to Brazil and from from NGOs to corporates end-users.

The European Energy Certificate System (EECS) Standard for Guarantee of Origin held by the Association of Issuing Bodies released their annual statistics for the use of the GO-market. Statistics can be seen via the following links:   ·         Issuing, transfer and cancellation statistics can be found here ·         Ex-Domain Cancellations statistics can be found here For any questions regarding the statistics, please contact the RECS International secretariat at: secretariat@recs.org

In the light of the upcoming revision of the EU Renewable Energy Directive a new report from RE100 calls on policy makers to ensure a better policy framework, allowing for companies to have easier access to renewable power in Europe.