Trading guarantee-of-origin certificates: Blessing or pitfall for promoting electricity from renewable energy sources?

Currently, a wide range of strategies is implemented in different countries to increase the share of electricity from renewable energy sources: one of the most controversial discussions is whether trading-based (e.g. the recently announced Guarantee-of-Origin (GoO) trade) or technology-specific instruments (like feed-in tariffs (FIT) lead to preferable solutions for society. An important issue in this context is that both systems are actually marked-based and both systems are introduced by policy makers and, hence, create artifical market. Finally, in both systems the final electricity customers (or the tax payers) will have to cover the support costs. The core objective of this paper is to discuss the perspectives of quota-based GoO trade for an efficient and effective increase of RES-E in comparision to FIT. The analysis is based on a formal framework showing how instruments works using the computer model GREEN-X. A major focus is put on the analysis of additional extra costs for electricity consumers/tax papers. The major results of this analysis are: (i) The success stories of growth in RES-E in EU member states in recent years has been triggered by FIT implemented in a technology-specific manner at modest costs for European citizens. Compared to short term trading in renewable certificate markets the intrinsic stability of feed-in systems appears to be a key element for success. At present, quota-based trading systems show low effectiveness. Hence, currently a well-designed (dynamic) FIT system provides a certain deployment of RES-E in the shortest time and at lowest costs for society.