Electricity Disclosure

Definition

Electricity Disclosure is a requirement implemented in the revised Electricity Market Directive (2009/72/EC). All suppliers of electricity to final customers have to disclose to their customers the contribution of different energy sources to the portfolio of the supplier in the preceding year. They must also disclose related environmental impact indicators, at least in terms of CO2 emissions and the production of nuclear waste.

The objective of disclosure is to provide consumers with relevant information about power generation and to allow for informed consumer choice, and for choice not to be based on electricity prices alone. In a liberalised market, disclosure requires some sort of tracking of the required attributes from generation to the supplier.

Member states have implemented national legislation on disclosure in different ways, sometimes also allowing for disclosure of differentiated product information (e.g. a green power product and a standard product).

While green power quality labelling is based on subjective quality criteria, which usually exclude a significant part of the electricity market from labelling, disclosure is an objective information scheme for the whole electricity market, providing consumers with information which they can use following their individual preferences.

How does electricity disclosure work?

For a proper disclosure of the electricity mix, suppliers can use Guarantees of Origin to account for the share of green electricity they sell and / or a set of default statistic values, the residual mix to account for the rest of the electricity. In the countries where this is relevant, suppliers can also use Other Reliable Tracking Systems (RTS).
(see definitions below)

Definitions

Guarantees of Origin (GO)

A unique means of proving the origin of an instance of electricity for purposes of elec- tricity disclosure. Most usual are RES-GOs and cogeneration GOs, but the concept has already been extended to all other types of electricity generation.

Reliable Tracking Systems (RTS)

Explicit tracking systems other than Guarantees of Origin which are used for purposes of electricity disclosure and which fulfil the criteria of added value, reliability and transparency as defined in the E-TRACK recommendations. Typical examples of Reliable Tracking Systems are allocation mechanisms for electricity which has been supported under a feed-in support system or ex-post contract based tracking systems.

Residual Mix

A pool of available generation attributes which are not explicitly tracked in order to dis- close certain consumption.

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