Debate post on green certificates

Related to a current bill (L-148) that is to promote renewable energy, Hans Henril Lindboe of Ea Energy Analyses has written a debate post for the online media GridTech, which is an online division of the Danish newspaper Ingeniøren (“the Engineer”).

In the bill the Danish rules for issuing the so-called guarantees of origination for renewable energy, commonly known as green certificates. A guarantee of origination is a certification of 1 MWh of RE-electricity. There is no direct connection between the guarantee of origination and the buyer, but a guarantee is given that somewhere in the EU or associated countries, 1 MWh of green electricity has been produced.

In his debate post Hans Henrik Lindboe mentions the challenges of the market for guarantees of origination, such as price formation and whether the buyers are aware, what the product actually is. The bill, in its current form, will not lead to the problems being solved. A change of the certificates could be an option instead, so it is clear to the consumer if buying the certificate is a part of supporting the green transition by contributing to the establishment of new RE-production.

The full debate post can be found here (in Danish).