The RECs Market Meeting 2016 will take place on 8 and 9 March 2016 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This year the event is titled, “Consumers Choose Renewable Energy” to reflect the grassroots support for renewable energy procurement from consumers large and small.

This consultation seeks the views of stakeholders on proposed changes to the procedure for presenting Guarantees of Origin (GOs) to Ofgem after the removal of the Climate Change Levy (CCL) exemption for renewables from 1 August 2015. In light of the absence of Levy Excemption Certificates for output from 1 August 2015, Ofgem is now consulting on proposed changes to the way GOs are presented to the UK national authorities.

MiFID II: the European Securities and Market Authority (ESMA) has published its draft regulatory technical standards which are designed to establish ways of working under MiFID II. If this is passed in its current form, some stakeholders are concerned that the legislation would result in energy companies being subject to similar requirements to those affecting investment banks.

The Association of Issuing Bodies, with technical help from Grexel Systems Ltd., will take over the calculation of the European attribute mix and the national residual mixes from the RE-DISS II project. 

EFET had an informal meeting with Ofgem and HMRC to discuss the phase out of CCL exemption.

RE100 is a global initiative that was established to engage, support and showcase influential companies committed to using 100% renewable power. It is led by The Climate Group in partnership with CDP, and it is supported by the We Mean Business coalition.

We understand that a number of members are currently considering how capacity on the BritNed or IFA could be reduced or terminated as they have lost their commercial purpose because the CCL Exemption for renewable source electricity is removed from 1 August 2015.

The AIB has received formal position statement from the UK’s VAT collector (HMRC) regarding RES GOs (known as REGOs in the UK). 

On July 15th the European Commission released the 2015 energy summer package. The summer package, "presented proposals to deliver a new deal for energy consumers, to launch a redesign of the European electricity market, to update energy efficiency labelling and to revise the EU Emissions Trading System". While the focus on the consumer was clear, there was no mention of the guarantee of origin or electricity product choice.