Voluntary Surrender

To maintain the integrity of the LRET and SRES data held within the REC Registry, the Clean Energy Regulator encourages participants of the LRET and SRES to follow the processes outlined below.  This ensures that the business practices of companies acting on behalf of individuals and individual companies are in accordance with the guidelines of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission and other Government agencies.

Option 1: For individuals or individual companies making voluntary offers

If you are an individual or individual company looking to make your own voluntary offer(s) you will need to apply for a registered account in the REC Registry.  This allows you to buy, sell and voluntarily offer LGCs and STCs.  If you wish to create LGCs or STCs see Options for becoming a Registered Person on this webpage.

Option 2: A company making voluntary offer(s) on behalf of individuals or individual companies

If you are making voluntary surrender offer(s) directly on behalf of others you will need to:

1. Apply for a registered account in the REC Registry through the New Account Wizard.  This allows you to buy, sell and voluntarily offer LGCs and STCs.  If you wish to create LGCs or STCs see Options for becoming a Registered Person on this webpage.
2. Apply for a registered account in the REC Registry for the the individuals or individual companies.  This means you will need to create accounts for each individual and individual company you make voluntary surrender offers for.  You can make several offers for the same registered account once the initial account is created.  
3. The account name must follow the following format or the Clean Energy Regulator will not accept the offer:
   your company - the name of the individual or individual company - Voluntary Surrender (or VS)
   For eg:
   Neutron - John Douglas  - Voluntary Surrender

Option 3: A company making voluntary offers on behalf of customers that made the voluntary surrender request through another individual company

If you are making voluntary surrender offers on behalf of customers that made the voluntary surrender request through another individual company, you will need to:

1. Apply for a registered account in the REC Registry through the New Account Wizard. This allows you to buy, sell, and voluntarily offer LGCs and STCs.  If you wish to create LGCs and STCs see Options for becoming a Registered Person on this webpage.
2. Apply for a registered account in the REC Registry for the individuals or individual companies.  This means you will need to create accounts for each individual and individual company you make voluntary surrender offers for.  You can make several offers for the same registered account once the initial account is created.  
3. The account name must follow the following format or the Clean Energy Regulator will not accept the offer:
   your company  - the name of the individual company  - On behalf of client or company name  - Voluntary Surrender (or VS)
   For eg:
   Neutron - Atom - On behalf of Fred Douglas - VS

Option 4: A company making voluntary offer(s) to meet GreenPower obligations

If you are an individual company making voluntary offers to meet GreenPower obligations you will need to apply for a registered account in the REC Registry through the New Account Wizard.  This allows you to buy, sell and voluntarily offer LGCs or STCs.

If you wish to create LGCs or STCs see Options for becoming a Registered Person on this webpage. The account name must follow the following format in order to meet GreenPower and the Clean Energy Regulator requirements:

company name - GreenPower Account

For eg: Neutron – Greenpower Account

Voluntary offers will not be accepted unless the account name follows this format.

The Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 allows individuals and companies a number of ways to register and participant in the LRET and SRES.  There are two registration options.

Option 1: Public user of a registered account

An individual or company can be a public user of the REC Registry.  As a public user you are able to:

• own and transfer registered LGCs or STCs; or
• make voluntary or mandatory LGC or STC surrender offers.

To apply for a registered account, complete the New Account Wizard.

Option 2: User of a Registered Person account

• Create STCs for eligible water heater or small-scale solar panel, wind, and hydro systems.
• Apply for registration as an agent in order to create STCs on behalf of owners of deemed unit installations who assign their right to create STCs to the agent.
• Seek accreditation of a power station for which they are a nominated person, by applying to the Regulator.
• Create LGCs for power stations accredited by the Regulator.

To apply to become a registered person complete the New Account Wizard. When registration is successfully completed, a registered person is able to create LGCs or STCs.

After you have applied for a registered account you will need to:

1. Buy LGCs or STCs or create and register from any REC Registry account.  This means that you will need to contact another registered account and have them transfer the amount of LGCs or STCs to your REC Registry account.
2. Accept the transfer made by your seller of LGCs or STCs.
3. Make voluntary surrender offer(s) through the Voluntary Surrender functionality of the REC Registry.

GreenPower

1. Buy or create and register LGCs from the correct renewable energy source (TYPE) according to the GreenPower Accreditation Program Rules.
   See - GreenPower Accreditation Program Rules and generator listing
   This means that you will need to contact another registered account and have them transfer the amount and renewable energy source type of LGCs to your REC Registry account.
2. Accept the transfer made by your seller of LGCs.
3. Make voluntary surrender offer(s) through the Other Surrender functionality in the REC Registry.

Users of registered accounts making voluntary offers to meet GreenPower obligations should note that:

• GreenPower will not be using STCs for compliance purposes.
• The Clean Energy Regulator does not administer the GreenPower scheme.  If you have an issue with any GreenPower rules or require assistance to meet your obligations you should contact GreenPower directly.
• When making voluntary surrender offer(s) for GreenPower you do so with the knowledge that once the LGCs have been accepted for voluntary surrender the certificates are permanently removed from the market and cannot be:
  o transferred to another party
  o used to discharge a mandatory surrender liability under the legislation
  o returned as registered to your account

When offering LGCs or STCs for voluntary surrender the REC Registry requests confirmation of your offer several times before the offer is made.  This is to give you every opportunity to discontinue your offer, particularly if you chose the incorrect renewable energy source type and amount of LGCs or STCs.

For your first offer the Liability Assessment Team will confirm, via email, that:

• you offered LGCs or STCs correctly for other surrender
• you understand what the voluntary surrender offer means
• agree to the Regulator accepting LGCs or STCs offered for voluntary surrender going into the future.

The Clean Energy Regulator aims to accept voluntary surrender offers within 4 weeks of the offer and after permission from the Regulator.  This is dependent on:

• responses from registered accounts making voluntary if emails are sent; and/or
• whether you are making voluntary surrender offer(s) to meet GreenPower obligations.

In this case the Clean Energy Regulator will only accept voluntary surrender offer(s) once a year and only after GreenPower administrators indicate that the voluntary surrender offer(s) can be accepted.  Note this may vary if other arrangements are made with GreenPower.  In these cases the Clean Energy Regulator will only accept voluntary surrender offer(s) in accordance with GreenPower's specific direction.

LGCs and STCs that are accepted for voluntary surrender:

• Are permanently removed from the relevant market
• Cannot be transferred to another party or be used for mandatory surrender
• Cannot be returned to the account for future transactions or traded with mandatory surrender offer(s) of LGCs or STCs.

Voluntary surrender offers can be cancelled up to the point that the Clean Energy Regulator accepts them.

Once LGCs and STCs are accepted by the Clean Energy Regulatorthey are permanently removed from the relevant market.

You can cancel the offer made by accessing the relevant area of your REC Registry account.  Once cancelled the LGCs and STCs are returned to the account as registered certificates that can be used for future transactions.

The Clean Energy Regulatorrequires participants of the LRET and SRES to keep all relevant records and any supporting information relating to actions of the Act for a period of 5 years.  The Regulator can request any information under section 125A of the Act.

The Act allows the Clean Energy Regulator to conduct audits of any person who carries out actions of the Act at any time with consent of the company.  Should the company be selected for audit, you will be notified in due course.  Should the company not consent a monitoring warrant can be obtained.

Failure to meet any sections of the Act may result in suspension of registration or criminal proceedings and the payment of penalties.

If you are unsure about how to use particular functions of the REC Registry or have any technical issues you can:

• use the instructions found in the REC Registry by clicking on "help" to find relevant help files; or
• contact the REC Registry helpdesk on 1800 159 724.