Evaluation of guarantees of origin as a regulatory tool for sustainable energy

While the energy sector has an enormous impact on our life, it is one of the most polluting industries. It is therefore crucial to make a transformation and find solutions that can satisfy our energy demand and at the same time eliminate harmful effects. Importance of energy is still more sensible during the present time of war and energy crisis. Beside other solutions like reducing energy demand and energy efficiency, utilization of renewable energy sources (hereafter RES) is definitely a necessary step forward this transformation. Beside other facilitators (like eg. support schemes) guarantee of origin (hereafter GO) is a further tool related to RES electricity. GO is a standardized tradeable certificate used to prove to final consumers that the electricity supplied was generated from renewable energy sources. GO is connected to the so called ‘energy mix disclosure’ obligation of the European Union (hereafter EU) that requires electricity suppliers to inform their consumers about the energy source of the supplied energy. GOs are not connected to any support scheme, but establish a voluntary market for RES energy products. The policy aims of GO and disclosure are: (1) informing final consumers, and (2) promoting RES development. Main findings of the dissertation are the following: • GO and disclosure is a soft measure as policy tool that ensures provision of information to consumers. Indirectly, it aims to promote RES electricity. • The GO market is continuously increasing, a huge number of companies use GOs to communicate their environmental achievements. • However, GOs and disclosure has not affected RES development since the relevant EU framework was established. Until now, there was no scholarly evidence on it. Previous papers focused only on specific countries and did not have a Europe-wide approach. • The main drivers of RES electricity in Europe were identified as the following: capacity of electricity generating facilities, electricity import dependency, electricity price, per capita GDP, RES ...