Renewables markets at a crossroads: its takeaways from the RECs Market Meeting. Granular Energy joined the 14th edition of the RECs Market Meeting last week in Prague as one of the meeting sponsors. Here are its main takeaways: The conference's theme, "Renewables markets at a crossroads", captured the mood accurately: after two decades of growth, the GO market is maturing into a more complex environment. Structurally low prices and recent price increases, while mounting pressure from evolving regulatory standards is forcing the market to ask harder questions about its own credibility and long-term relevance. Generally the atmosphere in Prague was notably positive, and for straightforward reasons. EAC prices in the EU are above €1.50 per MWh lately, driven partly by low Norwegian hydro levels compressing near-term supply, and sentiment-driven momentum has taken hold. Spot prices are trading at a premium to forward curves. After years of price levels that many participants found discouraging, the uptick has improved confidence. Granular Energy was present with Eleonore, Camille, Eoin, and Pal in Prague. What follows is its reflections on the official positions argued from the podium, and the rather more candid views exchanged between sessions: Eleonore: reading the room and pushing back. Eleonore, who spoke on one of the conference's panels, was alert to the fragility behind the price hike. Higher prices send a signal to generators that renewable certificates carry real value. But the market's long-term relevance cannot rest on a weather-driven supply squeeze. The opening keynote set the stakes directly: are voluntary renewable energy markets sustainable, or will only compliance mechanisms deliver change at the pace the transition requires? Voluntary action has structural limits: buyers who find the market too complex or too expensive will simply exit. At the same time, mandatory rules must be pragmatic enough to avoid an unnecessary rise in complexity. Eleonore used her panel appearance to make a call for market paticipants to be more ambitious and evolve the EAC market to be more entrenched and essential to the energy transition, at risk of staying still and becoming irrelevant. Voluntary markets are not an end state. They are a testing ground for innovations around EACs, where stakeholders can iron out some of the existing hurdles while creating financial value in the process. Eoin: a missing argument. "Demand destruction" was a recurring worry in the sessions Eoin attended: would stricter matching rules push buyers out of the market? Yet the argument undercut itself. The same speakers warning stricter rules would drive demand away also insisted credibility and integrity are what keep demand in the market. However, credibility is what stricter, more transparent rules are built to deliver. The same is true of oversupply in the EAC markets, which the conference agreed is damaging: prices that fall too low erode the very credibility the market depends on, since a certificate that costs almost nothing ends up signalling almost nothing. However, potential cost increases was another recurring argument used against stricter matching rules. A more interesting question went largely undiscussed: if demand does leave, which demand is it likely to be? If some of that demand thins out, a price floor for EACs could begin to re-establish itself. Stricter matching works the same way on the supply side by creating scarcity when renewable generation is low, exactly when the grid most needs to direct investment toward new assets like storage. Managed scarcity is not simply a threat to the market; it creates price signals highlighting periods where supply is needed. However, as rightly pointed out during the conference, the task is to balance this against the hurdle rate facing new entrants, who sit at different stages of their decarbonisation journeys. It must be high enough to mean something, but not so high it shuts out players early in their decarbonisation journey. After all, as everyone agreed in the end, the goal is impact. Camille: a global market amid growing standards pressure. One of the more visible shifts at RMM 2026 was the growing presence of EAC market participants from Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The topics debated in Prague are relevant globally to industry players as well as buyers. Each certificate system operates under different registry rules, subsidy frameworks, and disclosure requirements. A buyer making renewable energy claims across multiple geographies faces a genuinely fragmented landscape, from how to procure effectively to how to account correctly amidst changing standards, which raise the bar for what qualifies as a valid claim. As one session put it: the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. The market has built real infrastructure over twenty years. The risk of fragmentation isn't just that it slows any one region down; it's that divergence across markets erodes confidence in the system as a whole. For an instrument whose value is fundamentally tied to trust, that's not a secondary concern. The conversations in Prague revealed how much active debate remains, and showed there's a clear appetite to resolve these questions together rather than diverge further. Pal: the complexity problem is solvable, but the work has to start now. Beneath every debate in Prague: matching rules, standards, harmonisation, one constraint kept recurring: complexity. Participants cited it as one of the primary reasons for caution. Complexity, however, is not a reason to hold back. Power markets are among the most intricate systems in the global economy: balancing mechanisms, settlement regimes, capacity markets, interconnection rules. Yet they function precisely because suppliers, traders, and technology providers have built the expertise and infrastructure to manage that complexity. EAC markets don't have to be that different. Much of the operational burden stems from fragmented registry systems, diverging local regulations, and manual workflows that have not kept pace with the market's ambitions. That is a solvable problem: through better tooling, automation, and the market participants who are already building the systems to manage it... This matters more now than before. The demand for clean, credibly documented energy is rising, driven by AI infrastructure, data centres, and the electrification of industry and transport. Keeping complexity manageable is not a technical afterthought. It is the precondition for everything else the market wants to achieve. The work digitising registries, automating workflows, harmonising standards should start now, regardless of where the policy debates land. More insights. News · 11.06.2026 May 2026 was a month in which the economics, the standards, and the markets all moved in the same direction. Firm 24/7 renewables are now cost-competitive with fossil fuels. Mandatory hourly disclosure is entering corporate climate frameworks for the first time. And in markets from China to Australia, it's clear hourly matching at scale is coming. Here is what has been on its radar this month. Ian Lieblich has been helping Granular Energy explore the Australian energy market, which has one of the highest rates of renewable energy penetration in the world. On the back of a recent budget revisions, he's written down his thoughts on what's new, what's changed - or not, and why there is reason for excitement in the Australian energy transition.

New markets, new features, new karaoke songs: Granular Energy in 2025. Before signing off for holidays, its Commercial Director Eleonore Lazat wrote down some thoughts on 2025 and what Granular Energy has achieved. In the hustle and bustle of a startup, Granular Energy typically look ahead rather than behind. Chasing what's next makes it hard to reflect on its achievements. As 2025 comes to a close, I'm taking time to think about where Granular Energy started January 2025, and where Granular Energy has gotten to. This year has been one of meaningful growth and learning for Granular Energy, shaped by its expanding product, a widening global footprint, new partnerships, and continuously strengthening of its team. A broader product for the full EAC lifecycle. At the start of the year, its platform was primarily known for helping retailers and suppliers manage their Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs)-based products and portfolios on an annual and hourly basis, helping them cancel, comply and report on EACs to their customers. Today, thanks to the feedback from its users, its product supports almost every stage of the EAC lifecycle - beyond the retail-only use case Granular Energy started the year on. This year Granular Energy launched its risk and forward portfolio management features, giving market players a way to track forward buy/sell deals and volumes, analyse forecasted imbalances and exposure, precisely monitor EAC delivery, reconcile EACs to their deal positions, and run EAC registry operations in a seamless way. This has helped teams operate with greater automation and confidence in the market, all while replacing previously manual internal tools that were limiting scalability. Its product becomes a complement or replacement to an ETRM, providing EAC-specific features that ETRMs today don't offer. This means Granular Energy now supports EAC operations across generation, trading, retail and procurement, bringing more transparency and efficiency to the entire ecosystem. Welcoming new clients across markets. Granular Energy is powering more players every year, and are thankful to the organisations that put their trust in Granular Energy this year. In 2025 Granular Energy publicly announced partnerships with PPC, Eneco, Brook Green Supply, Ecotricity, and JERA Cross in Japan, among others. Each collaboration helps accelerate the shift to transparent EAC management, and brings Granular Energy a step closer to granular clean energy sourcing. A special highlight to me is A2A's video showcasing their Green Energy Match product, the first hourly matching tariff in Italy that Granular Energy enable. I love seeing how its clients communicate to energy buyers what hourly matching is, and this video puts it in simple terms with stunning clean power plant imagery. Expanding globally: konnichiwa Japan. Another milestone this year was signing its first client in Japan, and welcoming Tokyo-based Nana Yamaguchi to its team. Establishing a presence in the country enables Granular Energy to support a fast-developing market with real NFC (the local name for EACs) management needs closely, and it marks a meaningful step in its broader international expansion. Granular Energy is glad to be working with Jera Cross, a pioneering supplier and the first in Japan to offer hourly matching at scale, guiding Granular Energy as Granular Energy learn and adapt its work to the Japanese market. GHG Protocol shaping the future. A review of the year would be incomplete without a mention of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. In October, the GHG Protocol Technical Working Group and ISB published a consultation with draft guidance for the Scope 2 revamp that has been ongoing for the past three years. Two key developments appear: a requirement for hourly energy reporting and deliverability. This means to account for Scope 2 emissions, energy buyers will need to demonstrate they bought renewables within a certain restricted geographical area (the boundaries still TBD) and show how that production aligns with their consumption on an hourly basis. A consultation is open until January 31st for the public to share thoughts and feedback on the draft. Granular Energy is grateful that its work sits at the centre of this transition, and is helping the market be future proof. Its platform already delivers the hourly insights suppliers and buyers need, and helps turn that data into actionable decisions. It's encouraging to see the market moving towards the transparency that has guided its mission from the start. A year of team travel and connection. 2025 also brought Granular Energy together as a team, small in numbers but big in ambition and heart. Some of my favourite memories include: * Its now classic company pub quiz, that include questions on team pets, IEA data, client trivia. * Hosting its biggest client event yet at the CMS office in London, welcoming more than 80 attendees and finishing with a karaoke night (stay tuned for its 2026 event!) * An additional two karaoke nights, each more enthusiastic than the last * A now fan favourite Sinterklass poem night, where each team member wrote a roast/poem to a colleague These moments are a good reminder of how fortunate I am to work with such a committed and passionate team. I'm in a role where I get to support people as they grow and challenge themselves. I leaned into that even more this year, and it's been one of the most rewarding parts of my work. Looking ahead to 2026. Granular Energy is heading into 2026 optimistic. With deeper product capabilities on the horizon, new markets to support, and more organisations asking for finer and detailed renewable sourcing reporting, the coming year holds exciting prospects. To its clients, partners, and to the team: thank you for making 2025 what it has been. Here's to an even brighter 2026! LinkedIn Twitter / X Email Facebook More insights. News · 05.03.2026 From new registry infrastructure supporting hourly certificates in Europe, to investor coalitions pushing for a long-overdue GHG Protocol update, the momentum behind hourly matching and traceable carbon accounting is growing. Closer to home, Granular Energy has had some exciting news of its own. Here's what's been on its radar this month. Granular Energy is pleased to announce a new partnership with South Pole. This collaboration marks an important innovative step in renewable energy certificate management across global markets.