Green certs raise questions for electricity suppliers

Energy companies regularly trade certificates allowing them to claim green electricity generated and used in other European Economic Area jurisdictions as their own. So when Irish suppliers provide customers with a yearly update of their fuel mix in coming weeks, it is likely that some of the renewable power counted on those reports was produced and used in Norway or France or some other country.

Dubbed guarantees of origin (GOs), EU law underpins the certificates. Ireland’s Single Electricity Market Operator and the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) oversee their use, which is closely audited. The point is to ensure that the cash consumers pay for renewable energy ends up paying for renewable energy, even if it is in another country.

The argument is that it supports investment in green energy throughout Europe, aids efforts to cut carbon emissions and eases the damage we are doing to our climate, which benefits everyone. So it makes no difference whether the green energy that Irish families support when they pay their electricity bills is generated in Scandinavia or Sligo.

However, it’s likely that anyone who looks at their fuel mix report assumes they have used the green energy referred to. In some cases, that is impossible. Last year, renewables accounted for around 36 per cent of the power generated here. Consequently, that was the proportion of green electricity supplied to everyone in the country, while gas, coal, oil and imports produced the rest.

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So, where a supplier says their fuel mix was 100 per cent or 50 per cent renewable, they have bought GOs to make up the difference. While this is legitimate, it still raises questions, including how to account for the non-renewable electricity the customer actually uses. The CRU acknowledged as much this week and proposes asking that companies be more transparent from next year. It will be interesting to see how suppliers react to those proposals, and if they have to change some of their marketing as a result.