RECS – Renewable Energy Certificate System
Relevance
EU level with national issuing bodies
RECS Certificate is a proof of origin (and no Label / no trademark) based on a voluntary agreement.
Target
- Environmental target:
Reducing CO2 emissions; National and cross border trading between EU 25 countries with electricity produced from renewable energy sources
- Product group:
Electricity produced from renewable energy sources (RES-E)
Product/service group
Green Electricity - electricity produced from renewable energy sources (RES-E)
Tradable are RECS Certificate and GoO - Guarantee of Origin Certificates, based on national legislation in line with Directive 77/2001/EC (Directive on the promotion of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in the internal electricity market).
The Directive 77/2001/EC defines “renewable energy sources shall mean renewable non-fossil fuels (wind, solar, geothermal, wave, tidal, hydroelectric installations with a capacity below 10 MW and biomass which means products from agriculture and forestry, vegetable waste from agriculture, forestry and from the food production industry, untreated wood waste and cork waste)”.
Furthermore “electricity from renewable energy sources shall mean electricity generated by plants using only renewable energy sources; the part of electricity produced from renewable energy sources in hybrid plants using conventional sources of energy, in particular for back-up purposes, may be included in this definition”.
Awarding Institution & criteria
The RECS International Association is based on a voluntary agreement of renewable energy producers, traders and suppliers in Europe. Every participating country has appointed an independent national issuing body to operate this trading system.
RECS is a non-profit-organisation registered in Brussels. RECS also act as a representative of the members to influence policy on governmental level concerning the certificate trading.
The awarding institution is the RECS board itself. The institutions that trade with RECS certificates or Guarantee of Origin (GoO) Certificates have to fulfil the RECS qualification criteria. These criteria are set up on the definitions of the Directive 77/2001/EC. No additional criteria with regard to environmental protection are added to the RECS criteria. It is necessary to register the production device (production plant) for RES-E at RECS.
As part of the RECS trading system also GoO Certificates are tradable on the AIB/RECS Internet-platform. Each GoO is based on national legislation; and each national legislation has to be in line with Directive EC 77/2001/EC.
The criteria for renewable energy sources are laid down in the aforementioned Directive.
Control mechanisms
Every registered production plant for generating RES-E has to have metering equipments for the electrical inputs and outputs satisfying the requirements of RECS.
The re-application for registration of the production plant is necessary at least every five years. In the case of changes with respect to the production plant a re-application is necessary on each occasion.
An independent auditor according to the rules of RECS checks every generation unit. A production audit will be conducted no less than once every five years. The generation units are audited in practice every year. In the case, that the production unit is fuelled completely or partly with biomass, a production audit is required every year.
RES-E that was supported in terms of money based on national legislation (e. g renewable source act in Germany) is not tradable under the RECS system.
Charges
In case that the trader wants to become a member of RECS he has to pay a yearly membership-fee and an admission fee. The yearly amount of the fees depends on the size of the trader. Furthermore, some small costs arise for the transfer of certificates. The advantage for a member of RECS will be that he will get additional information and support from RECS
In case that a trader will only trade with the certificate (RECS, GoO) on one hand there are no costs for the yearly membership-fee. On the other hand, however, the costs for trading and participating in the RECS system are much higher and more differentiated compared with the costs for the RECS members in that case.
Relevance on the market
The RECS system started in 2001. Nowadays round about 180 members are trading certificates (RECS, GoO) in more than 15 countries in Europe.
