The Abu Dhabi Department of Energy (DoE) has launched a regulatory policy for clean energy certificates as part of its commitment towards establishing a sustainable decarbonized energy sector and a market for trading renewable and nuclear energy attributes. Following this, the International Renewable Energy Certificate Standard Foundation (I-REC Standard) and DoE signed an agreement appointing the latter as the accredited I-REC local issuer for the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
Four key parties have been identified as key enablers for implementing Abu Dhabi’s clean energy certificates scheme. These include the following:
- The DoE serves as the Issuer being the only entity formally authorized to issue clean energy certificates within the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.
- I-REC Standard is responsible for providing a single central registry platform, the I-REC Registry, where records of the full lifecycle of ownership and use of the issued clean energy certificates are held and maintained. It records all trading transactions, verifies claims, and ensures there is no clean energy certificate double counting.
- Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC) will act as a Single Registrant that ensures all generation plants producing clean energy in Abu Dhabi are listed in the I-REC Registry.
- Businesses or consumers who wish to obtain a clean energy certificate can act as Participants by opening an account in the I-REC Registry platform.
In order to support credible clean energy usage and delivery claims, DoE designed the clean energy certificates scheme based on the internationally recognized attribute tracking system for renewable energy certificates developed by the I-REC Standard. DoE would issue certificates in units of 1 MW/h upon receiving a request from the Single Registrant. The Participants can then purchase certificates and allocate beneficiaries.
His Excellency Eng. Mohamed Bin Jarsh Al Falasi, commented, “With heightened alerts about the impacts of climate change and an increased commitment to environment protection by customers and major companies who want their practices to reflect their social responsibility, our clean energy certificates offering is timely and will support end-users in their sustainability goals. We are delighted to launch the Regulatory Policy for clean energy certificates to support the overall integrity of measuring, reporting, and accreditation requirements for the issuance and management of such certificates while ensuring alignment with international practices and additional domestic criteria.”
Clean energy certificates are voluntary tradeable financial instruments that certify the purchase of a specific amount of electricity that has been generated from a clean energy source. Once the solar or nuclear energy is fed into the grid, the clean energy certificates can be traded as credits to claim the environmental and social benefits of low carbon energy consumption.
Othman Al Ali, chief executive officer of EWEC, said, “EWEC is proud to be playing its role in supporting DoE’s new strategic initiative to decarbonize Abu Dhabi’s electricity value chain. The UAE has an ambitious program of initiatives to take climate action, and EWEC is actively supporting these by leading the change in the energy sector with a focus on sustainability and renewable technologies. EWEC will facilitate the implementation of Abu Dhabi’s clean energy certificates scheme by offering I-REC accredited certificates for sale on a quarterly basis. More details on the process will be released shortly.”
