What can I do with a Guarantee of Origin?
A guarantee of origin can be transferred, independently of the energy to which it relates, from one holder to another. The EU Directive 2009/28/EC requires that all EU Member States have to establish a national registry for Guarantees of Origin (GOs, GoOs) for electricity from renewable sources.
In other words, a Guarantee of Origin can only be used once by an end consumer, but it could be traded freely at each stage of its value chain until its final consumption – a process known as cancellation or redemption of GoO. However, with a view to ensuring that a unit of electricity from renewable energy sources is disclosed to a customer only once, double counting and double disclosure of guarantees of origin should be avoided.
Who can receive a Guarantee of origin?
The Renewables Directive requires that each Member State shall ensure that a Guarantee of Origin is issued in response to a request from a producer of electricity from renewable energy sources (also valid for producers of heating and cooling from renewable energy sources). The system is purely voluntary, and individual producers can decide whether they wish or not to make such a request. No more than one Guarantee of Origin shall be issued in respect of each unit of energy produced.
Does the Guarantee of Origin have an expiration date?
All European GoOs should have a 12 month validity period. If a GoO is not cancelled during its twelve-month lifetime period, it can no longer be used for disclosure purposes or be transferred, and so it expires.
How it works? What is the life cycle of a Guarantee of Origin?
The illustration created by Swissgrid shows the physical path of the electricity (bottom part of the picture) and the virtual path of the electricity in the form of Guarantees of Origin (the top part of the picture). A Guarantees of Origin will be issued for every MWh of electricty produced. The GoO is decoupled from the physical electricity and traded separately as an independent electronic certificate.
