Promotion of a Market for Hourly Energy Certificates

Abstract: GHG emissions play a key role in the escalating extreme weather crisis. Commercial and industrial sectors consume almost two-thirds of global end-use electricity; therefore, they have played and will continue to play an important role in driving clean energy in the near term, particularly renewables. Electricity lies at the heart of these global challenges. It is both a significant source of global carbon emissions and is also key to decarbonizing large sectors of the economy, including buildings, transport, and industry. Access to affordable and clean electricity is also essential for economic growth, quality healthcare and education, and many other development goals. To achieve net-zero emissions across the global economy by 2050, electricity must decarbonize even faster, while becoming the core of a just and accessible energy system. Carbon Neutral is where organizations offset their emissions by purchasing carbon offsets intended to reduce or prevent global emissions. 100% Renewable Energy is where organizations purchase renewable energy to match their annual electricity use. 24/7 RE (Renewable Energy) means that rather than emitting and compensating, organizations don’t emit in the first place. Every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumption is met with renewable energy electricity sources. It means reneweble energy for all. The thesis evaluates two main needs for reaching 24/7 for all: metering production and consumption data access and a granular certificate scheme. In addition, a business case for a granular certificate issuer is presented in order to show the opportunities and challenges that these entities will have with the coming 24/7 renewable energy approach. For metering data access, the thesis shows that although Europe is at the forefront of the process, only 3 countries out of the 18 analysed meet all the criteria required to allow consumers and their partners easy and cost-efficient access to relevant, granular metering data. 8 of these countries present some kind of obstacle, 7 do not have a system in place, although data is available in some way, and 1 has no smart rollout plan in place at all. Guarantees of origin schemes analysed shows that systems are not customer centred, in most of the countries it is not possible to assign the GO certificate to a specific consumption point and the process of getting information about cancelled GOs for corporate consumers is tedious and time-consuming. With the identified barriers, in both, metering data exchange infrastructures and guarantees of origin systems, a proposed system have been developed, which links metering data exchange infrastructures with the certification scheme, by providing metering consumption and production data with hourly granularity to support the 24/7 matching of renewable energy. Finally, in the business case proposed, it can be observed that being a granular certificate issuer, a 1.3 M revenue can be obtained in the first year, only with the Spanish market. Then, after 5 years, by also targeting Netherlands and Denmark, a 3.24 M revenue can be obtained.5Several business opportunities appear, in addition to the business of being a granular certificate issuer.