Introduction
A. Immediate Purpose
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Art. 15 para. 1 establishes the obligation upon MS to ensure that the origin of electricity produced from renewable energy sources can be guaranteed, this obligation is achieved trough the issuance of GoO. The immediate purpose of such guarantees, and therefore of GoOs, is to serve as proof to the final customer of the share or quantity of energy from renewable sources in an energy supplier’s energy mix in accordance with Art. 3 para. 6 of Directive 2003/54/EC.
The latter Directive was repealed by Directive 2009/72/EC, but the provisions of Art. 3 para. 6 of the first were fully incorporated into Arti. 3 para. 9 of the new Directive. In terms of such Article, MS have an obligation to: i) ensure that electricity suppliers specify in or with the bills and in promotional materials made available to final customers, among others, the contribution of each energy source to the overall fuel mix of the supplier over the preceding year in a comprehensible and, at a national level, comparable manner; and ii) take the necessary steps to ensure that such information is reliable and also, at a national level, comparable.
B. Restrictions on the immediate use of GoO
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The immediate purpose of GoOs is made even clearer in the definition of such instruments provided in Arti. 2 [j] of the Renewable Energy Directive:
“For the purposes of this Directive… The following definitions also apply:
…
(j) ‘guarantee of origin’ means an electronic document which has the sole function of providing proof to a final customer that a given share or quantity of energy was produced from renewable sources as required by Article 3(6) of Directive 2003/54/EC;
…”
From the above definition, it shall be concluded that GoO can only be used for the aforementioned purpose (i.e. their sole or exclusive purpose is to provide proof to final customers of the origin of the energy they receive). This restriction on the use of GoOs’ is also mentioned in Recital [52] of such Directive:
“(52) Guarantees of origin issued for the purpose of this Directive have the sole function of proving to a final customer that a given share or quantity of energy was produced from renewable sources…”
Nonetheless, just as a reference (as it is beyond the scope of this commentary), from the last paragraph of Art. 15 para. 2 of the Renewable Energy Directive the question may arise if GoO can also be used by MS to target compliance or calculate the gross final consumption of energy from renewable sources under Article 5 of such Directive.
C. Mediate purposes.
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Additionally, GoOs have two more mediate purposes that are linked together: i) serve as means to improve the quality of the information provided to consumers (as mentioned in Recital [54] of the Renewable Energy Directive); and ii) favor the market of renewable energy sources, thus: a) helping to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions (see Recital [1] of such Directive), in that sense, protecting the environment, and b) positively impacting regional and local markets, in particular regarding medium-sized enterprises and independent energy producers (see Recital [4] of the aforementioned Directive).
Apparently, the European Legislator considers that European consumers will tend to favor those suppliers, whose energy mix has a larger component of renewable energy, thus promoting the production and use of such energy (consequently achieving purposes mentioned in section ii) of the above paragraph). In that order of ideas, the quality of the information provided to consumers regarding the energy source is of vital importance, therefore also the GoOs (as they serve to guarantee such information).
