A green certificate are a tradable commodity proving that certain electricity is generated using renewable energy sources. Typically one certificate represents the generation of one Megawatthour of electricity. What is defined as "renewable" varies from certificate trading scheme to trading scheme. Usually, at least the following sources are considered as renewable:
Wind (often further divided into onshore and offshore)
Solar (often further divided into photovoltaic and thermal)
Wave (often further divided into onshore and offshore) and tidal (often further divided into onshore and offshore)
Hydro (often further divided into small – microhydro – and large)
Biomass (mainly biofuels, often further divided by actual fuel used).
Green certificates represent the environmental value of renewable energy generated. The certificates can be traded separately from the energy produced. Several countries use green certificates as a means to make the support of green electricity generation closer to a market economy instead of more bureaucratic investment support and feed-in tariffs. Such national trading schemes are in use in e.g. Poland, Sweden, the UK, Italy, Belgium (Wallonia and Flanders), and some US states.
Once in the grid, renewable energy is impossible to separate from the conventionally generated energy. This makes purchasing of a green certificate equal to purchasing a claim, that the certificate owner consumed energy from the renewable portion of the whole energy in the grid. Therefore certificate purchase does not affect how much renewable energy was actually generated – only how it was distributed.
In contrast to CO2e-Reduction certificates, e.g. AAU's or CER's under the UNFCC, which can be exchanged worldwide, Green Certificates cannot be exchanged/traded between e.g. Belgium and Italy, let alone the USA and the EU member States.
Net metering is an electricity billing mechanism that allows consumers who generate some or all of their own electricity to use that electricity anytime, instead of when it is generated. This is particularly important with renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which are non-dispatchable. Monthly net metering allows consumers to use solar power generated during the day at night, or wind from a windy day later in the month. Annual net metering rolls over a net kilowatt-hour (kWh) credit to the following month, allowing solar power that was generated in July to be used in December, or wind power from March in August.
The Renewables Obligation (RO) is designed to encourage generation of electricity from eligible renewable sources in the United Kingdom. It was introduced in England and Wales and in a different form in Scotland in April 2002 and in Northern Ireland in April 2005, replacing the Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation which operated from 1990.
Microgeneration is the small-scale production of heat or electric power from a "low carbon source," as an alternative or supplement to traditional centralized grid-connected power.
Good Energy Group PLC is a British energy company based in Chippenham, Wiltshire that provides services in the electrification of transport and decentralised renewable energy generation such as domestic solar panels. The company is also an energy retailer, and built a portfolio of wind and solar generation which was sold in 2022. Founded by Juliet Davenport, its CEO is Nigel Pocklington.
The United Kingdom is the best location for wind power in Europe and one of the best in the world. By 2023, the UK had over 11 thousand wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 28gigawatts (GW): 14 GW onshore and 14 GW offshore, the sixth largest capacity of any country. Wind power generated about 25% of UK electricity, having surpassed coal in 2016 and nuclear in 2018. It is the largest source of renewable electricity in the UK.
Small wind turbines, also known as micro wind turbines, generate electricity for small-scale use. These turbines are typically smaller than those found in wind farms. Small wind turbines often have passive yaw systems as opposed to active ones. They use a direct drive generator and use a tail fin to point into the wind, whereas larger turbines have geared powertrains that are actively pointed into the wind.
Wind power in Germany is a growing industry. The installed capacity was 55.6 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2017, with 5.2 GW from offshore installations. In 2019, a quarter of the country's total electricity was generated using wind power, compared to an estimated 9.3% in 2010.
Financial incentives for photovoltaics are incentives offered to electricity consumers to install and operate solar-electric generating systems, also known as photovoltaics (PV).
Solar power represented a very small part of electricity production in the United Kingdom until the 2010s when it increased rapidly, thanks to feed-in tariff (FIT) subsidies and the falling cost of photovoltaic (PV) panels.
The availability and uptake of green electricity in the United Kingdom has increased in the 21st century. There are a number of suppliers offering green electricity in the United Kingdom. In theory these types of tariffs help to lower carbon dioxide emissions by increasing consumer demand for green electricity and encouraging more renewable energy plant to be built. Since Ofgem's 2014 regulations there are now set criteria defining what can be classified as a green source product. As well as holding sufficient guarantee of origin certificates to cover the electricity sold to consumers, suppliers are also required to show additionality by contributing to wider environmental and low carbon funds.
Renewable energy in the United Kingdom contributes to production for electricity, heat, and transport.
A feed-in tariff is a policy mechanism designed to accelerate investment in renewable energy technologies by offering long-term contracts to renewable energy producers. This means promising renewable energy producers an above-market price and providing price certainty and long-term contracts that help finance renewable energy investments. Typically, FITs award different prices to different sources of renewable energy in order to encourage development of one technology over another. For example, technologies such as wind power and solar PV are awarded a higher price per kWh than tidal power. FITs often include a "degression": a gradual decrease of the price or tariff in order to follow and encourage technological cost reductions.
Feed-in tariffs in Australia are the feed-in tariffs (FITs) paid under various State schemes to non-commercial producers of electricity generated by solar photovoltaic (PV) systems using solar panels. They are a way of subsidising and encouraging uptake of renewable energy and in Australia have been enacted at the State level, in conjunction with a federal mandatory renewable energy target.
Renewable energy law is a particular kind of energy law, and relates primarily to the transactional legal and policy issues that surround the development, implementation, and commercialization of renewable sources of energy, such as solar, wind, geothermal and tidal. Renewable energy, (RE) law also relates to the land use, siting, and finance issues encountered by developers of renewable energy projects.
The Renewable Energy Sources Act or EEG is a series of German laws that originally provided a feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme to encourage the generation of renewable electricity. The EEG 2014 specified the transition to an auction system for most technologies which has been finished with the current version EEG 2017.
Wind power in Indiana was limited to a few small water-pumping windmills on farms until 2008 with construction of Indiana's first utility-scale wind power facility, Goodland with a nameplate capacity of 130 MW. As of September 2017, Indiana had a total of 1897 MW of wind power capacity installed, ranking it 12th among U.S. states. Wind power was responsible for 4.8% of in-state electricity production in 2016.
A feed-in tariff is when payments are given by energy suppliers if a property or organisation generates their own electricity using technology such as solar panels or wind turbines and feeds any surplus back to the grid. In the United Kingdom, they were entered into law by the Energy Act 2008 and took effect from April 2010. The scheme closed to new applicants on 31 March 2019.
The United Kingdom is committed to legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets of 34% by 2020 and 80% by 2050, compared to 1990 levels, as set out in the Climate Change Act 2008. Decarbonisation of electricity generation will form a major part of this reduction and is essential before other sectors of the economy can be successfully decarbonised.
As of 2018, hydroelectric power stations in the United Kingdom accounted for 1.87GW of installed electrical generating capacity, being 2.2% of the UK's total generating capacity and 4.2% of UK's renewable energy generating capacity. This includes four conventional hydroelectric power stations and run-of-river schemes for which annual electricity production is approximately 5,000GWh, being about 1.3% of the UK's total electricity production. There are also four pumped-storage hydroelectric power stations providing a further 2.8GW of installed electrical generating capacity, and contributing up to 4,075GWh of peak demand electricity annually.
Wind power in the Philippines accounts for a total of 443MW as of 2020 according to the Department of Energy, covering about 1.6% of the country's total installed capacity for both renewable and non-renewable energy sources. When it comes to existing renewable energy sources in the country, wind power has a total share of approximately 5.4%. Despite currently being a small contributor to the country's energy mix, wind power installations have increased from 33MW in 2012-2013 to 337MW in 2014, 427MW in 2015-2018, and 443MW in 2019-2021. Moreover, the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Plan (NREP) 2020-2040 aims to commission 2,345MW of total wind power capacity by 2030. There has been a setback, however, as the wind power industry was moderately affected by COVID, particularly in the import of wind turbines. Due to this, several projects such as the Aklan onshore wind project got delayed. To further drive the wind energy sector in the country, an increased demand for renewable energy, greater government commitments, and reduced wind power tariff are needed.
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