Germany has notified the European Commission that it intends to voluntarily cancel EU carbon market allowances linked to the closure of electricity generation capacity at 14 installations covered by the EU Emissions Trading System in 2024.
The notification was received on 20 November 2025 and concerns cancellations associated with shutdowns attributed to additional national measures in Germany, the Commission revealed on Tuesday.
Germany completed the notification on 18 December 2025 after a request from the Commission.
The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is the bloc’s carbon market, where regulated sectors must hold allowances for the greenhouse gases they emit under Directive 2003/87/EC. The notification was made under Article 12(4) of that directive.
How the cancellation process works
The procedure for cancelling allowances is set out in Article 25 of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/2830, known as the Auctioning Regulation, the Commission said.
Germany submitted its notification using a standard template in Annex II of the regulation.
The document includes the power plants concerned, the method used to calculate the volumes to be cancelled, the maximum quantities, and the planned period of cancellation.
Under the rules, the member state must notify the Commission by 31 May of a given year of the exact number of allowances to be cancelled between 1 September and 31 December of that year.
The Commission said it has published Germany’s initial notification in line with Article 25(4) of the Auctioning Regulation.
