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. 

RE-DISS will be holding a free webinar on Disclosure Guidelines for electricity suppliers on July 29, 2015 from 10:00 – 11:30 (CEST).

The United Kingdom´s Climate Change Levy (CCL) was introduced in 2001 under the Finance Act 2000 with the aim of taxing the energy usage of non-domestic consumers  with the exception of the transportation sector. An exemption system was introduced to allow consumers of renewable source energy to avoid paying the CCL, by means of the levy exemption certificate (LEC) system. Operators of United Kingdom resident installations and foreign installations could obtain accreditation for the scheme and receive LECs. These would ultimately be sold together with the underlying renewable source electricity to suppliers in the United Kingdom who would claim exemption on behalf of their consumers.  LECs would be sold with other evidentiary instruments such as guarantees of origin and generator declaration for the purpose of fuel mix disclosure (FMD), feed-in tariff levelisation benefits, related determination of green excluded electricity under the contracts for difference (CfD) scheme and as evidence on 'green tariff' products. The appertaining commercial benefit was usually priced into the LEC price.   In the United Kingdom´s 2015 Budget, announced on 8 July 2015, Chancellor George Osborne claimed that as the United Kingdom has established a long-term framework for investment in renewable energy, the CCL exemption scheme, and therefore the LEC scheme, shall be removed. It is from the announcement not fully clear whether the exemption will be removed for both national and foreign installations, or just the latter. The explanation for the change appeared to be mainly concerned with foreign installations.  This note will briefly outline consequences of the removal of the CCL exemption regime on relevant agreements, notably: §  agreements for the delivery of LECs and guarantees of origin/generator declarations; §  agreements for the delivery of renewable source electricity into the British  electricity market; and §  agreement for the purchase of interconnection capacity and transmission services on interconnectors into the British  electricity market.