North Macedonia has completed its first auction of guarantees of origin, with buyers taking 34,000 of 35,000 wind GOs offered through MEMO, the market operator that conducted the sale. The average price was €0.35 per unit, establishing a market price for renewable electricity attributes.
Guarantees of origin separate electricity’s environmental attribute from the physical power. They give renewable producers another way to earn revenue and provide corporate buyers with documented support for renewable-energy claims. The auction adds price discovery to the existing administrative framework for the certificates.
More than 850,000 guarantees of origin have been issued in North Macedonia since April 2025. The country issued its first certificates in May 2025, initially for hydropower from ESM.
MEMO joined the Association of Issuing Bodies (AIB) in May 2026. The auction’s volumes were modest, but the market infrastructure is more important than its first clearing price, as renewable markets across the Western Balkans start developing products beyond megawatt-hours.
Transparent issuance and trading can improve the commercial value of renewable generation without a separate power-market subsidy, as corporate procurement, sustainability reporting and cross-border certificate recognition gain importance. The next test is liquidity: the market needs more sellers, corporate buyers and regular auctions before the GO price can become a meaningful investment signal.
