We recently hosted and participated in a webinar discussing the future of registries and APIs. The webinar was moderated by CerQlar’s Product Manager Olga Satolina, who was joined by CerQlar’s Head of Product Management Martin Edling Andersson, and Grexel’s Head of Accounts and Communication Laura Malinen.
During the webinar, the participants discussed the APIs’ and registries current and future roles in the growing and evolving renewable energy market, and how available tools like the CerQlar platform can work collaboratively and individually to support market participants’ escalating trade activities.
The benefits of API-enabled registries
The webinar opened with the topic of API connectivity. APIs make it possible for different software to connect and share information, meaning that in the case of registries, they would enable the registry to connect and exchange information with other software, including third-party solutions.
API is at the core of CerQlar’s mission to make the renewable energy trading industry more efficient, as API allows the market to continue scaling by making oversight, speed, and agility in trade possible. This is especially critical in dynamic markets, such as the renewable energy market. APIs also reduce errors and give EAC (energy attribute certificate) traders access to enough data to have the confidence to engage in larger trades. It does this by allowing traders to view what they have in their inventory, making it easier to manage their portfolio, meet delivery obligations, and overall get an accurate view of their position.Â
API also allows the market to automate more processes, which becomes more critical as the volumes of certificates and complexity of trades in the EAC market increase. Automation makes it possible to engage in large trades without the investment of time and money that would be required if the trade were managed manually and reduces the risk of manual errors.
What makes APIs so valuable to the EAC trade market?
The urgent need for APIs in the renewable energy trading market has been noted across the board and was a key topic at AIB’s OMC conference which was held in December. Laura shared that there are three key points that come into play to make API capabilities so important to the EAC market in particular:
A. The industry’s intense growth and rising prices
In recent years, the industry has experienced sudden and unprecedented growth. This increased demand has driven up the prices of environmental certificates, which hit record prices in 2022. This growth is expected to continue as growing environmental awareness and green legislation continue to drive up the demand for EACs and therefore the prices.
B. The industry is becoming more complex
As the number of participants and certificates in the EAC industry rises, trades will become larger and more intricate, making it difficult to manage them manually and driving up the need for an automated solution that can connect to registries.
C. Increasing granularity requires advanced capabilities
The increase in granularity means that there is now demand for specific certificates. For example, certificates from a geographic location such as France, or certificates representing a type of renewable energy, such as wind energy. Tracking these details throughout the certificate’s lifecycle is extremely complex manually, and is far easier with advanced software tools.
While market growth is happening organically, market participants should note that this growth is unsustainable without the support of infrastructure and automation. As the scope of their trades increases, market participants will need to automate their workflow to keep up with market growth. Increasingly intricate trades will also mean that information will have to be shared between registries and tools automatically to ensure it remains accurate.
What can we expect from the future of APIs?
More registries are becoming API-enabled every day, but in the meantime, CerQlar is compatible with both API and non-API registries. While an API allows the CerQlar platform to sync data automatically, non-API registries can still be used with a manual upload. As more registries enable API, the way EAC traders interact with registries will transform their workflow and allow them to scale their activities to keep up with market growth.
Introducing CerQlar
CerQlar is a SaaS company with the mission of bringing efficiency to the energy attribute certificate market to support the market’s accelerated growth. CerQlar provides a platform built for renewable energy market participants, by renewable energy market participants. We built our platform from the ground up to meet the needs of a growing market, and provide EAC traders with a single source of truth and a unified interface where users can access their collected inventory from various registries.
