Friday, 11 February 2022
Author: Kevin Lim
From April 2022, Grexel will be offering registry services for Finnish Transmission System Operator Gasgrid, for hydrogen and biogas. This comes on the heels of the recent announcement of Grexel winning an Energy Community tender to provide RES-E registry services for a group of Eastern European countries.
(Grexel 9 February 2022 press release)
Grexel, also headquartered in Finland, currently acts as the national EECS registry for eight issuing bodies in Europe as well as the European Hydrogen GO register, CertifHy. With their latest moves regarding renewable gas and electricity registers, they are positioning themselves as leaders in the energy transition.
Services will be delivered via the newly developed Grexel solution G-REX, which was designed to aid customers in navigating complex regulatory requirements.
Markus Klimscheffskij, CEO of Grexel, comments “We at Grexel are glad to continue our service to Gasgrid Finland and congratulate them on their new position of national issuing body of gas and hydrogen GOs. Finland is one of the leading EU countries in implementing the EU Renewable directive recast article 19 on GOs for all energy carriers. It is exciting to get to implement our new G-REX registry platform with leading actor like Gasgrid Finland. We are thrilled to further support the development of the markets for clean gases and hydrogen.”
Heli Haapea, Gasgrid Service Manager, completes “We are happy to partner with the expertise of Grexel. It is exciting to execute this registry together and enable the market for clean gases, including hydrogen. Gases enable a carbon-neutral society and Gasgrid provides a platform for it. We want to develop our services and the gas market to promote the carbon-neutral energy and raw material system of the future.”
According to the EBA Statistical Report 2021, 2020 production of biomethane in Finland amounted to 109 GWh. According to the EBA update, production of biomethane increased markedly from 2019 (under 75 GWh). The biogas sector has set a target (combined biogas/biomethane) of 4 TWh production by 2030, which would represent a four-fold increase in current production (approximately 1 TWh combined). In 2020, Biomethane was used exclusively for mobility applications and represented close to 60% of all gas usage in the transport sector in Finland.
It is unclear what the potential for the biomethane GO market in Finland is. While the majority of the production is comprised of biogas rather than biomethane, support has been restructured which will see biomethane become more competitive compared to the non-upgraded biogas. A well-run GO system would help highlight the green attributes of biomethane, which should increase overall demand and also encourage usage in non-transport sectors.
However, much of the current biomethane production is currently off-grid whereas GO systems are best suited to grid-connected operations, where injection and mixing require appropriate tracking systems such as the book-and-claim schemes (which GOs belong to). The growth of grid injected biomethane will depend upon gas infrastructure development, and also where new production facilities will be situated (Southern Finland is relatively well connected, whereas there are fewer pipeline connections to the North).
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