About SETREC

Project impacts

SETREC will have a significant impact on a strategic as well as on an operational level. Strategically, the project will contribute to policy making both on an EU as well as a Member State level. The project aims to provide a deeper insight into the mechanics of the trans-national TREC market and the green electricity market. Operationally, the project will contribute to the EU’s renewable energy (RE) targets by removing (potentially) significant barriers to RE growth.

Additional impacts of SETREC will be to:

• Create awareness with all stakeholders on the actual and possible side effects of TREC trade, thereby aiding in their prevention.

• Highlight and help prevent current and future harmful side effects, particularly those that frustrate emerging RE markets, that undermine consumer confidence in green electricity, and that – unintentionally – waste EU taxpayers’ money.

• Contribute to the effectiveness of the design of national RE policies and the deployment RE policy instruments.

• Prepare the ground for a unified European policy on Renewable Energy regulation, in particular with regard to financial support schemes.

• Prepare the ground for a successful implementation strategy for a harmonised European TREC-system by the year 2005 (as conditionally announced in Directive 2001/77/EC).

• Provide qualitative and quantitative insight in actual and project side effects of RE- and TREC trade.

SETREC work plan

The aims and objectives of SETREC will be achieved through five Work Packages (WP):

Work Package 1: The framework - drivers and preconditions
This WP will work to develop a framework for the identification and interpretation of interactions and side-effects of the introduction of TREC-systems and TREC-trade and a description of market-drivers, preconditions and actual and projected operation of these markets.

Work Package 2: Actual and projected trade and side effects
This WP will:

• Describe actual local and international trade mechanisms for RE and TRECs;

• Quantify actual local and international trade of RE and TRECs;

• Describe and quantify actual policy interactions of side effects; and

• Look at expected effects in countries not yet applying TREC of RE-trade.

Work Package 3: Scenarios
WP 3 will develop scenarios on the interactions of national TREC schemes and policies and examine the possible effects of separate and common actions in the RE field.

Work Package 4: Recommendations for national and EU policy
The outcomes of this WP will be:

• Recommendations on national and EU policy regarding RE and TRECs.

• Recommendations on the use of GO as a tool for electricity tracking and to prevent double counting of green electricity.

• Well-founded input for the 2005 Commission framework with regard to support schemes for electricity produced from renewable energy sources (as announced in directive 2001/77/EC).

Work Package 5: Dissemination
Active consultation and dissemination will clarify the workings of the RE and TREC market and the possible destructive effects of badly regulated markets and/of ill-directed policy measures. It will engage them in discussions on the optimal regulation of the RE and TREC-market.

Information exchange is encouraged with all relevant stakeholders within the European RE and TREC market, through:

• Project workshops and seminar.

• EU wide and national press releases on the on the main results of the project.

• Regular update of the SETREC|GO-web site.

The project is funded by the European Commission Altener Programme.