What is REC?
Features of Renewable Energy Certificate
The evidence of environmental benefits, ID card and CV of green power
Electric current has no directionality. It is impossible to distinguish between green and gray electricity in the power grid, making it difficult to the commercialization and promotion green energy. To solve this issue, renewable energy certificates are broadly used to verify and track green electricity. By concretizing environmental benefits, a renewable energy certificate can be used as an identity card for green electricity and identify the owner of renewable energy. Renewable energy certificate records the information such as the type of green power, the source of the green electricity, the period when the power were generated, the amount of power generated, and the owner of the certificate, etc.
The certificate is issued per MWh in the mainstream
There is no uniform standard for renewable energy certificates in the world.
In most economies, a renewable energy certificate is issued per MWh of electricity.
However, there are a few special cases. For example, in some economies, a certificate is issued when more than 100kWh electricity is generated. In some other economies, there is a weighting mechanism to provide more incentives based on the type of renewable energy and its corresponding standard. Therefore, although the nominal amount of electricity represented in the certificate is 1MWh, the actual amount of electricity generated may not be 1MWh.
What types of energy does renewable energy include?
Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale, such as sunlight, wind, hydropower, geothermal energy, ocean energy, etc.
With the advancement of technology and the international trend of decarbonization, the use of renewable energy is becoming more and more significant.
Nowadays, more and more renewable energy certificates are used to prove the use of renewable energy. Renewable energy certificates are issued according to the types of renewable energy. Currently, in Chinese Taipei, the renewable energy certificate can be issued based on solar power, wind power, small hydropower, geothermal power, and biomass energy. Among them, only three types of renewable energy certificates have been issued. They are solar power, wind power, and small hydropower.
Environmental benefits are not double-calculated
A reliable renewable energy certificate needs the following attributes:
To ensure that the information recorded on the certificate is true.
To ensure that it is the only representative tool for a specific energy attribute.
To ensure that the owner of the energy attribute certificate is the sole owner of the certificate.
The mechanism ensures that the environmental attribute of each certificate is not declared more than one time.
For relevant requirements, it can be referred to the WRI GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance, which is a quality criterion for self-assessment of a contractual instrument that can be used as a market benchmark.
Most certificates are issued electronically
Most of the renewable energy certificates are not hard copy certificates.
They are issued electronically and all relevant actions, such as the issuance, claim, use, cancellation or retirement, are done online. The tracking system of renewable energy certificates is also electronic.
A certificate database is usually established through an electronic system which can make the auditing or statistical analysis of renewable energy certificate faster and more convenient. A database can be connected to related ratings or applications.
