About the GO market

WHAT IS A GO MARKET?

HUPX plans to launch its guarantees of origin (GO) market in the first half of 2022. 

Guarantees of origin are tradeable, electronic certificates, which prove that a certain share of the energy consumed was produced from renewable energy sources. Guarantees of origin can be registered after production, thus GO trading is disconnected from the physical electricity products; it is performed in retrospective manner. Sellers in the market are renewable power plants, who besides selling energy production can apply for issuing their guarantees of origin. The EU proclaimed ambitious targets in terms of both demand and supply; therefore, increasing renewable capacities lead to the enlargement of the supply side.

Buyers of guarantees of origin are primarily those companies, which are committed to transforming their energy consumption into greener and more sustainable, thus contributing to their marketing and PR values and finally to the positive recognition of their products and services. Such companies have three options to certify green consumption:

1) Building their own generation capacity, this option has significant technical limitations;

2) Procuring electricity via PPA (Power Purchase Agreement) from a renewable power plant, this option is risky in terms of prices and volumes;

3) Purchasing guarantees of origin, retrospectively, independently from the electricity, thus minimizing the above-mentioned risks.

Roles of organized GO markets in Europe

Besides issuing and cancelling guarantees of origin, trading got a more and more important role recently. After Italy and France, new organized markets are popping up mostly focusing on Feed-in-Tariffs (FiT) GO auctions. The latest ones cover Luxembourg, Croatia, Slovakia and Portugal. With these platforms, market participants receive transparent price signals – just as it is common on power markets. The upcoming new countries – including Hungary – plan to start their organized market, while many developments are also in the pipeline on other markets. These organized, transparent platforms could gravitate the liquidity and emerge as substitutes of bilateral trading and OTC transactions.

GO markets in Central Europe

Just as on power markets Central European GO markets are mostly built upon the experience of Western European countries. Recently many Central and Eastern European countries joined the Association of Issuing Bodies (AIB), such as Serbia, Czech Republic and Bulgaria, meanwhile already two countries – Croatia and Slovakia – started their organized GO market. For many years GO markets were lacking liquidity and were not transparent. With further AIB memberships, like Hungary and newly planned market developments, the role of Central Europe can emerge just as it did on power markets. The start of HUPX GO market will further strengthen the role of Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) GOs within the European supply.

• IN HUNGARY

  Based on Hungary’s National Energy Strategy 2030, we can expect an increase in renewable energy generation, while according to HUPX and CEEGEX assumptions, demand for green energy consumption is expected to grow as well. Additionally, GO markets in the EU experienced dynamic growth in the past decade.  

  

  Volumes are displayed in TWh

  Source: AIB

  In Hungary, most solar and wind generation is produced in the Feed-in-Tariffs (FiT) scheme, therefore, the Hungarian organized GO market is going to focus on FiT producers. In 2020 local solar and wind generation totalled 2 TWh, which can be considered as a solid volume on the regional level. HUPX aims to launch an auction market, where in the first phase MAVIR (Hungarian Transmission System Operator), as the nominated buyer of FiT production will sell the related guarantees of origins. The Hungarian act on electricity was amended during the summer of 2021 and named HUPX, as the operator of the Hungarian organized guarantees of origin market. HUPX has started the implementation of an auction algorithm, which will maximize the income of the FiT regime, thus increasing social welfare.

• HUPX GO MARKET

  HUPX, as the operator of the organized GO market will be responsible for providing a transparent, non-discriminative and anonym trading environment. HUPX plans to introduce new functions to sellers and buyers as well, such as clearing, physical and financial delivery and settlement services.

  1st phase: Feed-in-Tariff GO auction on the HUPX GO Market

  Trading mode:	auction
  Available technologies:	solar and wind and other FiT
  Seller:	MAVIR (TSO / state)
  Buyers:	GO Traders / End users
  Estimated market size:	1.9 TWh FiT wind & solar production in Hungary (2020)

  Membership in the Association of Issuing Bodies (AIB)

  At the end of 2020 the Hungarian Energy and Public Utility Regulatory Authority (HEA) submitted its application for Association of Issuing Bodies (AIB) membership.

  Benefits of AIB membership:

  • Standardized cross-border GO trading
  • PR in green markets
  • Faster GO issuing and transfering
  • Higher liquidity with international market participants

   

  Estimated project timeline: 

  Finalization of the market design	2021 Q3
  IT development	2021 Q4 – 2022 Q1
  Member testing phase	2022 Q1
  Go-live	2022 H2

  2nd phase: Non-FiT GO auctions on HUPX GO Market

  More information will be available at a later stage.

• FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

  As a next step of market development, HUPX foresees multiple phases. Introducing GO markets is a great opportunity for the HUPX Group to enter the green energy market. It is expected that according to RED II and potentially the gas decarbonisation package, to be introduced in 2021, gas guarantees of origins may be introduced on the Hungarian market, following which CEEGEX will also have the opportunity to launch its own GO market.