Allocating across non-matching demand and supply periods (cross-period allocation)

This article explains how the platform handles allocations where the generation period and the demand period do not match — for example, allocating certificates from a previous year to cover demand in the current year.

What is this about?

In most allocation scenarios, supply and demand sit in the same time period: generation from month M is allocated to demand in month M. However, some compliance programmes — particularly in the US, parts of Europe, Japan, and Australia — allow allocating certificates from a prior period to cover demand in a later one.

A common example: a supplier must cover demand for year N using certificates issued between July N-1 and December N, or a Belgian programme where monthly demand is covered by certificates cancelled up to 24 months after they were generated.

The platform supports these cross-period allocations while keeping demand and generation data coherent and accurately reportable.

How it works

Each demand volume in the platform now carries two distinct period:

  • Demand period — when the consumption actually occurred (the reference period for reporting, dashboards, and customer reports)
  • Generation period — when the allocated certificates were generated

An allocation of supply to demand in the platform records both the period of demand and the period of generation. Demand that has had supply allocated to it cross-period tracks the generation period of the allocated supply. This means that when looking at demand only you can filter and group demand by the period it relates to (the demand period), while still seeing the breakdown of when the underlying generation occurred.

How this appears in dashboards and reports

  • Demand view dashboards filter and group by demand period by default. This means demand for year N will appear under year N, regardless of when the certificates were generated.
  • The generation period is preserved and shown when exploring the breakdown of allocated generation over time — so you can see that demand in year N was covered by certificates from year N-1. The demand custom table view filters by demand duration but allows you to group on demand or generation period.

In Customer reports:

Tips & things to know

  • This feature is particularly relevant for compliance-driven programmes that permit a window of time for certificate cancellation after the demand period closes.
  • If you are working with multi-year portfolios involving cross-period allocations, use the Demand view with generation period as an additional grouping column to get a full picture of when supply was sourced relative to when demand occurred.

  • The platform supports mixed portfolios — standard and cross-period allocations can coexist within the same customer and contract.