About the GO market
What is a GO market?
Guarantees of origin are tradeable, electronic certificates, which prove that a certain share of the energy consumed was produced from renewable energy sources. Guarantees of origin can be registered after production, thus GO trading is disconnected from the physical electricity products; it is performed in retrospective manner. Buyers of guarantees of origin certificates support the renewable energy producer thus become entitled to communicate that the volume of energy consumed and backed by GO certificates has been produced from renewable energy sources. Sellers in the market are renewable power plants, who besides selling energy production can apply for issuing their guarantees of origin. The EU proclaimed ambitious targets in terms of both demand and supply; therefore, increasing renewable capacities lead to the enlargement of the supply side.
Buyers of guarantees of origin are primarily those companies, which are committed to transforming their energy consumption into greener and more sustainable, thus contributing to their marketing and PR values and finally to the positive recognition of their products and services. Such companies have three options to certify green consumption:
1) Building their own generation capacity, this option has significant technical limitations;
2) Procuring electricity via PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) from a renewable power plant, this option is risky in terms of prices and volumes;
3) Purchasing guarantees of origin, retrospectively, independently from the electricity, thus minimizing the above-mentioned risks.
Annual EECS Transactions in TWh (based on transaction date)
Source: AIB
Roles of organized GO markets in Europe
Besides issuing and cancelling guarantees of origin, trading got a more and more important role recently. Besides the previously only bilateral and OTC trading, new organized markets are emerging focusing on GO auctions of certificates related to the given country’s renewable energy production. The latest ones cover Italy, France, Luxembourg, Croatia, Slovakia and Portugal. With these platforms, market participants receive transparent price signals – just as it is common on power markets. These organized, transparent platforms could gravitate the liquidity and emerge as substitutes of bilateral trading and OTC transactions.
GO markets in Central Europe
Just as on power markets Central European GO markets are mostly built upon the experience of Western European countries. Recently many Central and Eastern European countries joined the Association of Issuing Bodies (AIB), such as Hungary via MEKH, Serbia, Czech Republic and Bulgaria, meanwhile already two countries – Croatia and Slovakia – started their organized GO market. For many years GO markets were lacking liquidity and were not transparent. With further AIB memberships and newly planned market developments, the role of Central Europe can emerge just as it did on power markets. The HUPX GO market will further strengthen the role of Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) GOs within the European supply.
In Hungary
Based on Hungary’s National Energy Strategy 2030, we can expect an increase in renewable energy generation, while according to HUPX and CEEGEX assumptions, demand for green energy consumption is expected to grow as well. Additionally, GO markets in the EU experienced dynamic growth in the past decade.
In Hungary, most solar and wind generation is produced in the Feed-in-Tariffs (FiT) scheme, therefore, the Hungarian organized GO market focuses on FiT producers. In 2021 local solar and wind generation totalled 3.9 TWh, which can be considered as a solid volume on the regional level. HUPX launched an auction market, where in the first phase of the operation MAVIR (Hungarian Transmission System Operator), as the nominated buyer of Hungarian FiT production is selling the related guarantees of origins. Based on the amendment of the Hungarian act on electricity in 2021, HUPX is in charge of designing and operating the Hungarian GO market.
- FUTURE PERSPECTIVES
Introducing GO markets is a great opportunity for the HUPX Group to enter the green energy market. It is expected that according to RED II and potentially the gas decarbonisation package, gas guarantees of origins may be introduced on the Hungarian market, following which CEEGEX will also have the opportunity to launch its own GO market.