Melbourne outfit launches carbon market trading platform

A software platform described as an essential tool to understand and access rapidly developing carbon markets has been launched by its Australian developers, alongside the completion of a landmark Australian Carbon Credit Unit (ACCU) transaction.

Melbourne-base outfit Renewable Energy Hub on Friday launched its Core Markets carbon and clean energy workbench, an over-the-counter platform for wholesale market proponents, project developers and end users.

As RenewEconomy has reported, the company has been working with the backing of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to develop a suite of innovative, standardised, hedge contracts to meet the needs of a transitioning energy market.

The Core Markets platform provides access to spot and forward contracts in carbon and electricity markets with a new suite of clean energy products developed by Renewable Energy Hub, and a full complement of carbon credits and environmental market certificates.

The product – including data and insights on price, co-benefits visibility and benchmarking – is supported by Renewable Energy Hub’s market leading advisory and transactions team, which combines 20 years of Asia-Pacific energy and environmental market experience.

“As activity in the carbon market increases, the need for market data, greater transparency and suitable access becomes even more important,” said Chris Halliwell, Renewable Energy Hub’s co-founder and head of markets.

Alongside the release of the platform, Renewable Energy Hub also announced the execution of its first ACCU ‘Put option’ carbon transaction in 100k units – signalling a new level of sophistication and dimension to the ACCU market.

The ‘put option’ affords the buyer downside protection via the right (but not the obligation) to sell ACCUs in early 2023 at a set price, with the option buyer paying an up-front premium to the seller for the contract.

Halliwell said the completion of this transaction demonstrated the speed at which the ACCU market and other carbon markets were developing – and the need for structure and solutions at a time of dramatic transition:

“Consumer demand for net zero imperatives has set business and investors on the march to decarbonise and the CORE Markets platform is an essential tool to understand and access the market,” he said.

Earlier this year, Renewable Energy Hub engineered a “virtual storage” electricity swap contract between Hydro Tasmania and two buyers – Macquarie Group and Shell-owned ERM Power.

The “game-changing” moment involved selling the rights to the highest priced energy periods of the day ‘discharge’ and buying a fixed MW block of low-priced energy ‘charge’.