Abstract
In the EU, electricity suppliers are obliged to disclose to their customers the energy origin and environmental impacts of sold electricity. To this end, guarantees of origin (GOs) are used to explicitly track electricity generation attributes to individual electricity consumers. When part of a reliable electricity disclosure system, GOs deliver an important means for consumers to participate in the support of renewable power. In order to be considered reliable, GOs require the support of an implicit disclosure system, a residual mix, which prevents once explicitly tracked attributes from being double counted in a default energy mix. This article outlines the key problems in implicit electricity disclosure: (1) uncorrected generation statistics used for implicit disclosure; (2) contract-based tracking; (3) uncoordinated calculation within Europe; (4) overlapping regions for implicit disclosure; (5) active GOs. The improvements achieved during the RE-DISS project (04/2010-10/2012) with regard to these problems have reduced the total implicit disclosure error by 168 TWh and double counting of renewable generation attributes by 70 TWh, in 16 selected countries. Quantitatively, largest individual improvements were achieved in Norway, Germany and Italy. Within the 16 countries, a total disclosure error of 75 TWh and double counting of renewable generation attributes of 36 TWh still reside after the end of the project on national level. Regarding the residual mix calculation methodology, the article justifies the implementation of a shifted transaction-based method instead of a production year-based method.
Highlights
Electricity flows to our houses and businesses from a mix of sources: from all the power stations that are connected to our power system [1]
As long as not all electricity consumption is explicitly tracked to certain generation attributes, explicit tracking mechanisms always require the support of an implicit disclosure system, a residual mix, in order to avoid double counting
Instead of different countries interacting with each other, they all interact with this common pool of attributes, which interconnects the domestic residual mixes the same way as the AIB Hub interconnects the explicit tracking of attributes (GOs)
Summary
Electricity flows to our houses and businesses from a mix of sources: from all the power stations that are connected to our power system [1]. As long as not all electricity consumption is explicitly tracked to certain generation attributes, explicit tracking mechanisms always require the support of an implicit disclosure system, a residual mix, in order to avoid double counting. This is important, because consumers expect the tracking system to be reliable and their willingness to purchase renewable power can be significantly reduced if the attributes are double counted [4]. RE-DISS has generated significant enhancements in the residual mix calculation methodology as developed by the E-Track [5] project It is highly likely that problems beyond this analysis exist at individual supplier level, but these could not be assessed in the scope of this study, because data collection was made on a country rather than individual supplier level
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