The overall aim of the REGATRACE (REnewable GAs TRAde Centre in Europe) project was to create an efficient trade system based on issuing and trading biomethane/renewable gases certificates, including Guarantees of Origin (GoO) and Proofs of Sustainability (PoS) with exclusion of double sale. This intended to strongly contribute to the uptake of the European common biomethane market. A significant help to the latter will be also provided by the comprehensive set of project’s actions at country level (including the guidance for feasibility analysis and the guidebook on securing investments for biomethane).
The trade system is designed for biomethane. Nevertheless, the system will be also capable of handling certificates issued for all other renewable gases (for example hydrogen produced via the Power-to-Gas process from renewable electricity).
The European biomethane/renewable gases market needs to be based on trading standardised certificates issued by the competent bodies under Europe-wide harmonised rules, regulations, procedures, and requirements.
Such a biomethane/renewable gases trade system can fulfil its functions if it is based on international cooperation of national issuing bodies/registries, who have the necessary professional knowledge, experience and are fully independent from the economic operators acting on the market.
The network of issuing bodies was meant to be established by including existing national biomethane registries (in AT, CH, DE, DK, EE, FI, FR, NL, and UK) and by establishing issuing bodies in the “target” countries of the project (BE, CZ, ES, IE, IT, PL, LT, and RO).
The issuing bodies were intended to be connected to allow exchange of data and title transfers. Subsequently, a dedicated biomethane/renewable gas trading platform will be necessary to trade biomethane/gases certificates directly among the market participants of the trading platform (producers, consumers, brokers, market makers, investors, etc.) in any location.
