Surrendering

By April 30 of a given year, the operators of fixed installations and the aircraft operators must surrender at least a number of allowances corresponding to their actual emissions (in tonne CO2-equivalent) during the previous year.

Until April 30, 2021 operators of fixed installations may only surrender phase III (2013-2020) general allowances (EUA or CHU), whilst aircraft operators may surrender both phase III (2013-2020) general (EUA or CHU) and/or aviation allowances (EUAA or CHUA).

Important : phase IV (2021-2030) allowances cannot be surrendered for phase III (2013-2020) emissions !
Any surplus of deficit surrendering for phase III (2013-2020) is carried over to phase IV (2021-2030).

Initiate a surrendering transaction

During April Authorised Representatives (AR) of operator and aircraft operator holding accounts are guided in their surrendering by the registry via a pop-up screen as soon as they go to the account details of the account.

Nonetheless, in order to initiate a surrendering transaction in the registry :

  1. An authorised representative (AR) with Initiator rights (role 2 or 4) must log into the registry.
    • please have a look at this page in case you encounter any problems when logging onto the registry.
  2. The AR must go to the relevant account of the installation or aircraft operator, via "Accounts" > "Accounts" and by clicking on the balance of the respective account.
  3. If you have any allowances on the selected account, you are able to choose to "Propose a transaction" and "Surrender of allowances" afterwards.
  4. On the surrendering transaction screen, you will see a summary of the current compliance status. This summary shows you amongst others the compliance figure (= the number of units that still needs to be surrendered) as well as the surrender requests that may be pending and which therefore where not included yet in the compliance figure.
  5. Enter on this screen the [Quantity to surrender] — as much as the compliance figure — and select "Submit" afterwards’.
  6. Just like an ordinary transaction, you must confirm the surrendering transaction with your EU login-password and with an SMS or soft token challenge.
  7. By default an AR with Approval rights (role 3 or 4) must now log into the registry to approve the corresponding task.

The menu "Transactions"” enables you to follow-up on the status of the surrendering transaction.

If you surrender more allowances than required, the excess will be carried over for the compliance for the future years.

Any CERs or ERUs on your account can not be directly surrendered in the registry ! You need to exchange those units first ; also see further.
Any exchange of CERs or ERUs must be done before the end of April 2021.

Compliance status

Authorised representatives can check the compliance status of the installations or aircraft operations they are representing by logging onto the registry and going to the relevant account afterwards via "Accounts" > "Accounts". The column "Dynamic Compliance Status" directly shows the (most recent) dynamic compliance status. The detailed compliance status of that account can be consulted by clicking the account number or account balance and selecting the tab "Compliance" afterwards.

The compliance table displayed at the compliance tab provides a summary of the verified emissions per year. Below the table, information can be found about the compliance status : the compliance figure and the dynamic compliance status (A, B, C or X) indicate whether you are already in compliance.

If the number of surrendered allowances matches the amount of verified emissions exactly, the compliance figure will be 0. As long as the compliance figure remains a negative number, fewer allowances have been surrendered than required for compliance !

Use of international credits - possible until the end of April 2021

Until the end of April 2021 operators may exchange international credits (CERs or ERUs) they have obtained for allowances. These allowances are indistinguishable from other allowances. However, there is a limit per installation/aircraft operator on the amount of credits that can be exchanged.

Always take into account that certain international credits have become ineligible under the EU-ETS and can hence no longer be used for exchange (more information can be found here). For the moment, these credits can be held, but can no longer be received on EU-ETS accounts anymore.

Sanctions

If the surrendering obligation is not fulfilled in time, operators face a huge fine of € 100 per allowance that was not surrendered!

Moreover, this fine does not lift the obligation to surrender the missing allowances.

 

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