2016

A residual mix is needed for reliable disclosure of electricity consumption where Guarantees of Origin (or in some cases other legally accepted tracking instruments) are not used. Due to the international nature of both the power market and the Guarantee of Origin (GO) market, centrally calculated residual mixes and the European Attribute Mix is needed. Energy authorities use the results of the calculation either directly or to calculate the residual mix for their respective country using national rules.

Key findings of the 2016 calculation are:

• The renewable share in European Attribute Mix (EAM) shrank from 4,04% to 3,81%, meaning that more renewable electricity is explicitly tracked - mainly by GOs.
• The untracked consumption shrank on average 4,3 percentage points and was 74,8% in 2016. The lowest shares of untracked consumption were in Sweden (16,8%) and Austria (20,3%). The low share of untracked consumption indicates the willingness of the power consumers to favour green power products over generic power products.
• In average, the residual mixes of 2016 have 5,0 percentage points less Renewable electricity and 5,3 percentage points more Fossil. Nuclear fluctuated between countries but averaged close to zero (0,2 pp decrease).
• The biggest national changes were in Austria (RES -65,4 percentage points, NUC +24,7 pp, FOS +40,7 pp) and Iceland (RES -51,8 pp, NUC +10,3 pp and FOS +41,55 pp), where much of the change can be attributed to actions by market players.

The complete results of the calculation can be found here.

The presence and use of a reliably calculated Residual Mix makes the entire disclosure system trustworthy, by determining and correctly disclosing to consumers who are purchasing a non-specific type of electricity. The concept of Residual Mix is also recognized by the Clean Energy for All Europeans Package proposed by European Commission last November.

To avoid so-called “expanding” of energy origin in all cases where GOs are exported, a coordinated European Attribute Mix needs to be calculated and applied. This is why AIB’s coordination of the EAM calculation complements the HUB service of the AIB extremely well: it informs countries of the origin of the energy they receive in return, when GOs are exported via the AIB HUB. This is a prerequisite for a complete and reliable electricity disclosure scheme, and closes the loop for the HUB service.

At the same time, it is important to remember that Residual Mixes can be seen as an intermediary step towards a full disclosure system where all electricity disclosure is done through GOs. This is supported by AIB’s reflection paper. Indeed, if all electricity was explicitly tracked through GOs (as it is done in Austria), no residual mix would be needed – which would improve the reliability, accuracy, efficiency and credibility of the disclosure system.