Review of existing electricity quality label systems in the European Union

Green electricity quality labels have been utilised in the European Union since 1990. Of the seventeen European countries analysed here1, at the time of writing nine had no countryspecific quality label, although all electricity tariffs within Europe were able to apply for accreditation under the EUGENE labelling scheme. Germany had several quality labels, each with slightly different criteria. All of the eighteen labels identified in the report applied to electricity from renewable sources. Of these, seven also allowed co-generation to be a part of the fuel mix and one had a requirement for eligible companies to fulfil some demand side management activities. No existing labelling scheme set an overall requirement for CO2 emissions, although some did set emissions limits for co-generation components. Seven labels required some contribution from new renewable energy plant2. Only three of the labels did not allow publicly funded plant to contribute to a labelled green tariff. A review of labels clearly indicates that: · there are several schemes with varying levels of “greenness”, operating in some countries, which may be confusing for customers; · very few labels are clearly requiring some additionality for the products. It is therefore recommended that the European Union and member states continue to use other support mechanisms to increase the generation of electricity from renewable sources

Guarantees of origin as a tool for renewable energy policy formulation

The EU Directive on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market (Directive 2001/77/EC) asks Member States, among others, to is-sue guarantees of origin for renewable electricity on request. Member States are obliged to ap-point one or more independent bodies to certify that green electricity comes from renewable en-ergy sources. These bodies will supervise the issue of the guarantees of origin (GO). The Direc-tive stipulates that these bodies should be in place no later than 27 October 2003. The RE-GO project has been conducted in the framework of the EU Altener programme and aims to: 1. review the implementation and use of GO in the EU, 2. analyse the GO as a tool for renewable energy policy formulation, 3. analyse the GO as a tracking method and the problem of multiple counting. The present report covers the second objective. The analysis presented in the report involves an identification of the potential interactions between GO and various renewable energy support policies which are currently implemented in the Member States, and an evaluation of the poten-tial role GO can play in facilitating these policies. The analysis covers the interactions between GO and indicative targets, Tradable Renewable Electricity Certificate (TREC) systems, feed-in-tariffs, fiscal incentives, electricity labels, electricity disclosure, the Renewable Energy Certifi-cate System (RECS) and the EU Emission Trading Scheme. The GO implementation design varies considerably among the Member States. Some countries have implemented a GO system that does not go beyond the minimum requirements of the Di-rective, whilst other countries have included additional information to enable GO to facilitate national renewable energy policy mechanisms. The report concludes that GO systems based on the minimum requirements of the EU Directive 2001/77/EC on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources, cannot be linked to national renewable energy support mechanisms, and, therefore, can easily lead to inef-ficiencies, in transparencies and also to multiple counting of the environmental benefits. It is recommended, therefore, to implement a GO system that goes beyond the minimum require-ments so that it can be fully integrated into the national support mechanisms. In this way GO can become a key component of the national renewable energy policy. In the longer term, a fully harmonised GO system across the European Union would be advisable to avoid duplica-tion of verification and monitoring efforts, and to effectively prevent multiple counting of environmental benefits