The Emirates Water and Electricity Company (EWEC), a leading company in the integrated coordination of planning, purchasing and supplying of water and electricity across the UAE, announced on Friday that it will conduct its fourth auction for Clean Energy Certificates (CECs) in Abu Dhabi, on June 14, 2022, following three previous successful auctions.
The CECs provide Abu Dhabi entities an empowering pathway to achieve their desired sustainability goals by guaranteeing the zero carbon origin of their clean electricity consumption, while also enabling them to further reduce their carbon footprint.
Additionally, CECs offer entities a global competitive edge by holding internationally recognised certificates that guarantees their green credentials.
“The innovative CEC scheme has proven to be a successful initiative in attracting a significant number of Abu Dhabi based entities aiming to play a vital role in supporting the UAE Net Zero by 2050 initiative,” Othman Al Ali, Chief Executive Officer of EWEC, said. “The success of our three previous CEC auctions encouraged more companies of all sizes to move towards clean energy consumption that aligns with their sustainability strategies and their commitment to tackling climate change”.
EWEC is one of the key parties enabling the implementation of Abu Dhabi’s CECs scheme, acting as Single Registrant and auction operator to establish a primary market for this new instrument. Previous CEC auctions saw EWEC signing strategic clean energy partnerships with entities across the energy, real estate, healthcare, and events sectors.
CECs are tradable digital certificates issued by the Department of Energy (DoE) in units of 1 MWh upon receiving a request from the Single Registrant and are currently the only accredited instruments in Abu Dhabi to prove ownership of the environmental and economic benefits achieved by consuming clean energy.
In August 2021, the DoE issued a regulatory policy for the CECs scheme which, for the first time globally, included CECs for power generated from nuclear energy.
Major Abu Dhabi based entities including the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and Aldar have purchased these certificates and have signed strategic clean energy partnerships with EWEC to guarantee that their electricity consumption is generated from clean energy sources such as solar or nuclear.
EWEC’s partnership agreement with ADNOC will see up to 100 percent of ADNOC’s power grid supplied by EWEC’s clean energy sources, while its partnership will Aldar Properties will see powering 100 percent of Aldar’s owned and managed operating assets by EWEC’s clean energy sources for up to five years.