Three related project tasks (2.5, 2.6 and 2.7) have resulted into a joint documentation package with guidelines enabling to conduct a tender for the IT-services needed to establish active trade on the European renewable gas market.
While the report D2.5 Guidelines for Tender Process of IT-services (published in November 2020) describes the organisational and technical aspects of the tender process for IT-services, report D2.6 Design Study and Technical Specification for Dashboard and Trading Platform (to be published in November 2021) follows up with detailed technical requirements on the necessary IT-services, namely a Dashboard function and a European Trading Platform.
REGATRACE project, and especially the present report, addresses the European Commission and organisations involved in integrating renewable gas into the European energy market and establishing and operating a Europe-wide IT-infrastructure for trading of the renewable (and sustainable) value of renewable gases. This way, the project supports reaching its goal as mentioned in the project title, namely describing the steps for establishing a REnewable GAs TRAde Centre in Europe.
The main pillars for a European renewable gas market are represented by National Organisations (renewable gas registries and Issuing Bodies) which need to be established in all European Member States. A European scheme may connect these national registries and the respective renewable gas markets by enabling cross-border ownership transfer of renewable gas certificates. On top of these main pillars, a web-based Dashboard and Trading Platform enable producers, consumers, and traders of renewable gas to get in contact, communicate with each other and agree on trade transactions.
The target of a Dashboard is to enable market participants to enter requests on buying and selling of renewable gas certificates, however no ownership transfer is foreseen. This missing process shall be conducted via a Trading Platform which is designed in the report as a trade center to enable ownership transfer and must thus have interfaces to the IT-infrastructure of national registries holding the renewable gas certificates (supported by an intermediary such as a transfer platform / hub).
However, in practice, developments on establishment of National Organisations and harmonisation efforts are still progressively ongoing. This does not allow for exact requirement definition and specification for the implementation of necessary IT-systems.
Hence, the present report provides a broad overview and deep insights into the technical setup and specifications of a European Dashboard and European Trading Platform for renewable gases. Definitions and options on business processes, covering organisational and technical levels for implementation in various aspects of Trading and Dashboard functions are described. The experience and knowhow of the project team and the results of conducted interviews with energy market experts and IT-experts are incorporated in a neutral manner.
Five different trading solutions for energy products were analysed. Two of the analysed platforms dealt with renewable gas certificates specifically. Both platforms were developed on the private sector and mainly focussed on a national market. Both platforms were closed within the project period since the liquidity was too low for the systems to be further maintained. This confirms the author’s approach to offer a broad, but in-depth requirement analysis and provide a wide range of options to implement a Trading Platform in the future, whereby the best option is not yet in sight.
