Registration Auditor

An auditor (Gutachter) is a natural or legal entity according to  § 8 (3), third sentence, ÖSG 2012 (Renewable Power Act) who is a certified public accountant, civil engineer, generally sworn and judicially certified expert or a technical office in the fields of electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, combustion engineering or chemistry and who is deemed to be a technical expert within the meaning of § 21 (1) ÖSG 2012.

Auditors are also those entities, who have received a certification by a voluntary scheme who is recognised by the European Commission. The auditing of biomethane certificates regarding sustainability criteria is reserved exclusively for such certified auditors.

Auditors receive a dedicated auditor-account in the system of the Biomethan Register Austria which is equipped with a specific set of functions.

The biomethane plant operator has to provide a certain auditor with access to certificates on their account. The access is granted by submitting the completed and duly signed and stamped form AF-AZ “Application form for the allocation of auditors to biomethane installations”.

Consequently, the biomethane plant operator may commission the auditor to perform certain audits on a specific biomethane certificate. These audits may be performed to fulfil certain criteria requested by external entities (e.g., funding agencies) or certain application purposes (e.g. sustainability requirements for biomethane in the transportation sector).

Auditors deliver data into the registry system by adding certain data (attribute level 3) to respective biomethane certificates. Auditors may upload an auditing report or auditor annotation in PDF and attach it to a respective biomethane certificate. When the respective data have been added, the auditor can finalise the auditing procedure by executing the function “audit” in the menu “certificate details” and save all additional data to the biomethane certificate.

Registration of an auditor account

To open an auditor-account in the Biomethane Registry Austria, the following documents have to be provided in detail:

• Certificates of competence: business license, judicial certification, certification of a voluntary scheme which is recognised by the European Commission, etc.
• For auditing of sustainability criteria:
  • Entity at which the auditor is employed must provide its certificate of competence to be a “certification body” following a voluntary scheme which is recognised by the European Commission.
  • Certificate of competence of the auditor following a voluntary scheme which is recognised by the European Commission.
• Application form to establish a contract for auditors (AF-GA)
• Application form for user activation (AF-FS)
• Application form for the allocation of an auditor to biomethane installations (AF-AZ) to be completed and signed by the respective biomethane plant operator

To finalise your application, submit the documentation package – requested certificates and duly signed application form – in paper form and per post to
AGCS Gas Clearing and Settlement AG
To the attention of: Biomethan Register Austria
Alserbachstrasse 14-16
1090 Vienna, Austria

If you have questions or wish to proceed quickly with your registration, submit the digital version of your application documents per E-Mail to info@biomethanregister.at in advance.

• Actions to be taken by the registry operator:
  • Your application documents will undergo a thorough verification process at AGCS Gas Clearing and Settlement AG.
  • The registry operator reserves the right to request additional documents and certificates in case of unclarities.
  • After successful verification of your documents, an account will be opened for your entity.
  • Your access data will be provided by the registry operator.
  • Once the account is opened, the auditor will be assigned to the account of the requested biomethane installation(s) and thus may perform certain audits on respective biomethane certificates.

The contract is concluded between the registry operator AGCS Gas Clearing and Settlement AG and the respective market participant (auditor) with the opening of the account in the system of the Biomethan Register Austria. From this date, the activated users may access the registry system, may execute dedicated functions and perform respective business processes of its dedicated user account role.