UAE’s EWEC sells 9 mn clean energy certificates at auction
EWEC clean energy certificates auction sold big: State-owned Emirates Water and Electricity Company’s auction for clean energy certificates last month closed with over 9 mn units sold, according to a statement. The company — the exclusive vendor of nuclear and solar-produced electricity in the UAE — is selling digital certificates to certify the source of renewable energy usage and allow companies to back up ESG goals. The auction was the company’s most successful to date, six months after the company’s fourth auction was held in June 2022.
SOUND SMART- Renewable energy certificates (RECs) are a MWh by MWh way of proving that you own or created renewable energy. A REC is issued when one MWh is delivered to the electricity grid from a renewable energy source, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) notes. RECs contain important data about the source of the renewable energy — including the kind of energy produced and its level of emissions — which play a crucial role in the tracking, accounting, and identifiable ownership tied to renewable electricity generation and use, the EPA tells us. Investopedia has more.
EWEC has fulfilled big CEC purchases outside of auction: Emirati aluminum conglomerate Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA) purchased clean energy certificates for 1.1 mn MWh of electricity from EWEC to support its production of solar aluminum last November. These certificates will certify EGA’s production of around 80k tons of its solar-powered aluminum CelestiAL.