Carbon-Free Chronicles: The essential round up of news and reports relating to 24/7 clean energy

What we're reading

Australia prepares to introduce time-stamped certificates

• In the second half of 2025, Australian Renewable Electricity Guarantee of Origin (REGO) will launch alongside the existing Large-Scale Generation Certificate (LGC) system. REGOs will fully replace LGCs in 2030.
• This shift addresses the limitations of LGCs, which lack time-specific data, thereby enabling suppliers to match and certify customer load on monthly and hourly bases.
• With a 5 year overlap between REGOs and LGCs, this gives suppliers time to develop and test hourly matched programmes to attract and retain forward-looking customers.
• Read about how REGOs will support hydrogen, critical minerals and green aluminium production in this EnergyTag blog post.

3 Pillars for Clean Hydrogen Production are solidified in final 45V rules

• Clean hydrogen production will require hourly matched clean energy, accompanied by hourly RECs, by 2030. Alex Piper summarises the details in this EnergyTag blog post.
• All US REC registries will need to develop hourly REC issuance and tracking capabilities. Electricity suppliers looking to support and attract clean hydrogen producers will need to develop hourly matched products.
• Along these lines, California recently approved a new rule requiring electricity suppliers to track and report power sources and associated GHG emissions on an hourly basis. This will take effect in 2028.

Optimising consumption with geographic variations to decrease Scope 2 emissions

• Tom Brown, writing for Bruegel, describes how data centres can dynamically align their operations with renewable availability across Europe.
• By leveraging variations in local generation capacity, weather patterns and time lags, data centres could shift their consumption to regions with the most renewable generation depending on the time of day and year.
• To prove their load shifting and associated Scope 2 emissions reductions, data centres would need to match their renewable usage on an hourly basis, ideally with hourly GOs.

GECs fill I-RECs' place in Chinese market, opening procurement options for businesses.

• Companies that previously relied on I-RECs for Scope 2 emissions accounting will now use Green Electricity Certificates (GECs) to certify their energy procurement decisions.
• Companies and retail suppliers alike are focusing more on bundled green power trading, combining GECs and PPAs. As detailed in this AFRY report, this option offers a lower price tag to “grid as agent” procurement, while ensuring certifiable green energy.

Join us at upcoming events!

• Future of Utilities — Amsterdam, March 19th-20th with Eleonore Lazat and Rick van Leersum
• Energy Marketing Conference (EMC 23) — Houston March 24th-25th with Ariel Smith
• Net Zero Energy Sourcing & PPAs — Berlin, March 27th-28th with Pal Habsburg-Lothringen
• HKNR Fachtagung — Dessau-Roslau, April 2nd-3rd with Pal Habsburg-Lothringen
• RECs Market Meeting — Amsterdam, April 7th-9th with Eleonore Lazat and Rick van Leersum, keep an eye out for our session!