Simulating a European-wide white certificates scheme: design issues and main lessons

The European Institutions are declaring a new commitment to strongly enhance the uptake of energy efficiency in the European Union. New Directives have been formulated (e.g. the Directive on promotion of energy efficiency and energy services) and the Green Paper on energy efficiency was issued to act as a catalyst to this renewed policy uptake.

The EuroWhiteCert (EWC) project, supported by the European Commission contributes to the conceptual and technical development of tradable white certificates systems covering energy savings and energy efficiency. One of the questions considered by EWC project is whether tradable white certificates will remain national management tools or may become a real European market. In this framework, the concept of a tradable white certificate system is tested by means of a pilot test which explores the practical implementation of a white certificate scheme by developing a uniform measurement and verification methodology, certifying existing projects, identifying a set of alternative market participants and analysing what could be the design of a EU-wide tradable white certificates scheme.

Based on past experiences led in the framework of Kyoto protocol implementation, several designs of a white certificates systems have been highlighted and tested trough three dynamical simulations in which physical players represented real actors likely to be involved in such a system. The third and last simulation (EWC 3) brought some interesting quantitative results, pointed out the specific difficulties of such a scheme, and allowed EWC partners to propose recommendations for promoting the implementation of tradable white certificates scheme.