The 2024 disclosure period for most countries in the AIB ended on 31 March 2025. Since the most recent AIB statistical data at best disclose GO cancellations until and including December 2024 only, Veyt has collected the data on cancellations for all the AIB domains with functional national GO databases that are updated regularly and where the 31st of March is the disclosure deadline.
In the list of countries with likely complete data, the majority have large increases in demand, with only Spain showing a negligible decrease and Norway a large decrease. Much of the decrease in Norway is attributed to the UK GO-Brexit in the beginning of the 2024 disclosure period, but the country is also showing a decrease of around 2 TWh in own domain cancellations. This may reflect the political swings seen in the country with respect to the support of the GO system.
Meanwhile, apart from the impact of relatively low prices, the rather strong demand growth seen in the majority of other countries could be attributed to the effect that the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) started to have on GO consumers. The CSRD began to affect companies that already were within the scope of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive (2014/95/EU) from the 2024 financial year, with first reports due in 2025 from large-listed companies.
They must report using the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), which reinforces market-based reporting, with a bullish impact on the GO market. Veyt’s review of the first batch of CSRD-compliant reports confirms the use of GOs by most businesses for Scope 2 GHG management.
Out of the countries that demonstrated the strongest demand growth, there are some notable cases:
1. The Netherlands
Out of all the important GO markets that saw demand growth, the Netherlands was leading this trend in matters of how much demand growth the Dutch consumers contributed to the total AIB demand. The total cancellations increased 19.7% to 76.2 TWh in the 2024 disclosure period, further underlying the role of this country as an important GO consumer.
2. Iceland
Iceland led the growing demand trend in matters of proportionate demand growth as cancellations tripled in the 2024 disclosure period from 1.4 TWh to 4.2 TWh. Iceland has traditionally not had a lot of GO cancellations, as local companies have opted for the favourable location-based reporting on the renewable powered island. However, the export ban that was imposed by the AIB on Iceland last year on grounds of double claiming for some market participants, might have contributed to the demand growth together with the ripple effects of the CSRD from continental Europe. The recent adoption of GOs as the preferred disclosure tool by Rio Tinto for their large aluminium smelter in Iceland could be a sign of a trend shift away from location-based reporting to the use of GOs.
3. Ireland
Cancellations in Ireland increased 43.67%, adding 7 TWh in the total demand. This growth could be attributed to the growth of electricity consumption in Ireland by data centres and the recent EU legislation related to this industry.
4. Finland, Sweden and Lithuania
Finland, being already a large consumer of RES GOs, saw cancellations increasing further by 2.8 TWh or 13.7%. Sweden, another important consumer of RES GOs saw an increase in cancellations of around 3.3 TWh or 7%. Lithuania, a small market with a demand of 2.4 TWh in 2023, doubled the cancellations in 2024 to 5 TWh. Considering that most of the CSRD reports that have already been submitted are coming from the Nordics area, the effect of CSRD could be the main driver for the increase in these countries.
Out of the countries that demonstrated a decrease in demand, the following is important to consider:
1. Sharp demand reduction in Norway
Cancellations in Norway decreased by 29.8 TWh (45.7%) to 35.4 TWh in the 2024 disclosure period. The decrease in cancellations is attributed to the loss of demand from the UK. The 2023 disclosure period in the AIB lasted from April 2023 until March 2024 while the 2023 disclosure period for the UK ended in July 2023. Because of this, ex-domain cancellations in Norway surged in July 2023 as British consumers cancelled a total of 27.2 TWh for their 2023 disclosure period needs. Therefore, these 27.2 TWh were registered in the total demand of the 2023 disclosure period in the AIB and now it reflected as a sharp decrease when comparing the 2023 and 2024 total cancellations in Norway.
Simultaneously, the total amount of own-domain cancellations in Norway also dropped by 2.2 TWh during the 2024 disclosure period. This 5.8% decrease is mostly attributed to the recent developments in the Norwegian public dialogue on introducing changes in the Norwegian disclosure system in favour of a more location-based system. When looking at the technology-specific data, there are strong indications that the decrease in total RES GO own-domain cancellations are attributed to a switch of Norwegian consumers to nuclear GOs. Whether this initiative does not materialise into actual policies by the Norwegian government and remains just a topic in the public dialogue, will define whether own-domain cancellations of RES GOs will rebound during the 2025 disclosure period or Norwegian consumers will reinforce the trend of opting for nuclear GOs like their two Nordic neighbours do.
2. Stagnant demand in Italy, Spain and France
Italy is a major consumer of GOs with a consumption of 92.2 TWh in 2023. The total consumption of this disclosure period decreased by around 1 TWh or 1.1%, even though the final number is expected to be slightly higher. The Energy Release plan that was announced by the Italian government a few months ago could play a role in this reduction in demand, as the scheme will provide renewable power and GOs to the companies that will be selected to participate in return for renewable capacity build-out. In the wake of the uncertainty over the development of the scheme, it is possible that many consumers adopted a wait-and-see approach.
Spain’s cancellations in the 2024 disclosure period were just 100 GWh below the 89.1 TWh of cancellations in the 2023 disclosure period while France saw a minor demand growth of 0.5 TWh. Such growth is a positive sign for GO demand in the case of France, considering the low economic growth of the French economy and the decreasing electricity consumption that was seen in 2024, but the stagnant demand in Spain is a negative sign for demand as the country saw a 2.5% GDP and 1.9% electricity consumption growth in this year.
Overall demand in most of the countries that have available cancellations data increased dramatically, probably because of the effects of the CSRD in sustainability reporting and low prices.
However, the absence of demand from the UK during the beginning of the 2024 disclosure period sharply decreased the amount of GOs that are consumed via the ex-domain cancellation channel. Still, we expect remaining countries, which we have no cancellation data from, including Germany with its large demand, to follow similar demand growth patterns as the majority of the countries presented in the update. This has the potential to counter the large supply of GOs from 2024, at least to a certain degree.
We will continue to monitor cancellation numbers as they are updated. We expect the overall bearish sentiment we have seen in the market to reverse when final numbers on 2024 consumption are rolling in, at least if we see a similar trend as in the majority of the countries with likely completed numbers.
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