I hereby announce a competition: find a nuclear power station in Iceland. If you can’t do that, a coal mine would do.
In point of fact, Iceland doesn’t produce electricity using nuclear power or coal, as 99.99% is produced by renewable sources – the remaining 0.01% is produced by diesel. But because Iceland is now part of the European internal energy market, it has implemented Directive 2009/28/EC on promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources. Together with regulations from AIB, the Association of Issuing Bodies, this means that other countries can “buy” renewable energy quotas from Iceland to increase their own quota of renewable energy. Icelanders then get the equivalent share of non-renewable energy detailed on their electricity bills once a year, equivalent to the amount of “green certificates” sold. So if not many green certificates are sold in a year, the percentage of nuclear energy, coal and oil-derived electricity is lower than if many certificates are sold.
This situation is ludicrous enough in itself, and I’d call it greenwashing (referring to the counties buying the certificates). But there’s a twist. Iceland prides itself on its “clean” image, especially when it comes to tourism, fish and agricultural products. So it’s not good for the image to have nuclear power effectively listed as an Icelandic energy source. However, ON, Iceland’s energy body that sees to geothermal power plants amongst other things, has come up with a solution for farmers, tourist bodies and other complainants: they can “buy” a clean image for a monetary sum and get in return a certificate saying that all the electricity their concern uses comes from renewable sources.
Totally, utterly absurd.
Lowana Veal 
Comments on: "Green certificates, Iceland and nuclear power" (6)
Hi Lowana,
Great piece. The situation in Iceland is crazy, but over here it’s maybe even worse: The Netherlands have just about 12 % renewable electricity production, but 36 % is sold als green – thanks to the system you described. Green electricity produced by labelling coal and atomic power with GO’s (Guaraties of Origin) from Iceland, Norway etc… doesn’t help the energy transition in the Netherlands at all. Dutch customers aren’t aware of the system and are glad with all the cheap fake green electricity.
WISE is an enviralmental organisation based in Amsterdam. We’ve been campaigning against this kind of greenwashing in the Netherlands for years, there’s even a name for this specific kind of electricity here: ‘Sjoemelstroom’…
Is there anything we can do for you?
Hi Markus, Believe it or not, I attended a meeting in Den Haag in the late 70s when WISE was set up.
The issue around green certificates received some attention last week after it first appeared in the farming newspaper, and I think the Minister of the Interior said that Iceland might try and get out of the green certificate market again, but I don’t know whether anything will happen.
Dear Ms Veal (and Markus),
Meanwhile, I have written this article http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/why-reliable-green-electricity-matters-to-customers/ on the matter. Please check it out.
What frustrates me most in this debate is that we are all in favour of more renewable energy, yet we cannot seem to stop quarreling amongst ourselves, rather that going after the dirty energy companies. I think more people got turned off from renewables altogether by the mass media using the word ‘sjoemelstroom’ than people where convinced to buy ‘truly green electricity’, whatever that may be. It’s a shame really…
Best regards,
Dirk
Dear Ms Veal,
You make an interesting point in this blog post and you express an opinion that is often voiced in the debate on green electricity. I fully agree with you that the situation is not ideal yet. However, I feel that we differ on the solution, as we see the problem in different ways.
The European directives created the guarantee of origin (GO) and this makes a market in green electricity – or to be more precise, in green electricity attributes – possible. The AIB then created and maintains a standard for GOs (the European Energy Certificate System – EECS) so that this market is efficient and reliable. While this might be quite abstract for many people, the GO is truly the only reliable instrument to set up a market for green electricity, because the physical flow of electricity from different sources cannot be followed on the grid. Moreover, electrons only follow the laws of physics, not man-made laws or contracts! This means that trying to establish a link between physical electricity flows and the source of the electricity is quite simply impossible. For that reason, setting up a market in green electricity based on a physical reality does not work. People who live next to a wind turbine use the electricity from that wind turbine (if the wind blows), whether this person wants it or not (maybe they may not like the idea of wind power and therefore signed up with an electricity supplier with only nuclear and fossil plants). Similarly, anyone living next to a natural gas-fired or nuclear plant would never be able to sign up for a green electricity contract. So if we want people and businesses to buy green electricity, we simply have to prove the greenness with GOs, please see http://pastebin.com/j9tiAPRY for more details on this.
Iceland joined the GO-system and started exporting GOs, thus exporting the ‘greenness’ of its electricity. The problem is this: if you make money from selling and exporting GOs, you should understand that the domestic electricity customers are no longer getting 99,99% electricity from renewable sources, because this has been ‘swapped’ for electricity from nuclear or fossil sources! When looking at an Icelandic electricity bill this already shows, because the Icelandic energy mix, which is no longer green, is published on it. However, the Icelandic public doesn’t perceive it this way. As long as Icelandic consumers stay in the dark on the effect of exporting GOs ‘double perception’ is created, as customers still think their electricity is green, when it has become quite ‘grey’. And yes, if Icelandic electricity customers really value the fact that their electricity is from renewable sources, they should consciously embrace the system and ensure that the greenness stays in Iceland by buying GOs…
Hope this is helpful to clarify the debate!
Dirk Van Evercooren, AIB President
PS Please also read the AIB Reflection Paper on the forthcoming Renewables Directive for more information on this topic: http://www.aib-net.org/portal/page/portal/AIB_HOME/NEWSEVENTS/REFLECTION
iceland is the worlds leader in alt energy and refusal of nuclear. good. most of europe banned nuclear after fukushima yet u seem to call that ludicrous? Are you a corporate shill for china? I hope iceland retains its green regulation and never gives in to nuclear that makes no financial or humanitarian sense at all.. unless youre trying to make profit from teh death of others that is…
Iceland will never build nuclear power stations. I am just angry at the greenwashing by other countries that think that because Iceland uses green energy, THEY can use nuclear (which I’m vehemently opposed to).