As companies use clean fuels certificates to report on their efforts to lower direct emissions, those claims are increasingly subject to external assurance. The credibility of these claims depends on their underlying evidence and whether they’re evaluated against criteria that are suitable for assurance. This guidance gives reporting entities and assurance providers a consistent basis …

Utility-scale electricity storage is expanding rapidly and becoming integral to grid operations, renewable energy integration, and corporate decarbonization strategies. It enables the time-shifting of electricity supply, enhances the value of variable renewable generation, and supports system reliability. But storage also decouples the timing of generation, consumption, and delivery; introduces conversion and auxiliary losses; and is …

CRS’s Clean Energy Accounting Project (CEAP)’s Hourly Clean Energy Utility Product Designs: Nine Product Model Examples helps vertically integrated utilities in the United States design credible, customer-focused hourly clean electricity products. The guidance includes nine of the most practical Product Model options organized by complexity and risk to the utility, equipping utilities to offer a …

A summary of CRS’s recent webinar, Rethinking the Impact of RECs – Developer Perspectives. The webinar brought together new academic research and real-world developer perspectives to explore a key question in clean energy markets: Do voluntary RECs meaningfully drive new renewable energy development? The discussion challenged overly simplistic narratives about REC impact and highlighted the …

Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) urges the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to restore the Voluntary Renewable Electricity Program (VREP) by setting aside 5.5 million allowances for 2025–2030. Without this, voluntary renewable energy purchases will no longer reduce overall emissions under the cap, undermining their integrity. This limited, cost-controlled set-aside preserves environmental impact without harming …

This letter urges the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to amend proposed cap-and-trade rules. Without changes, voluntary renewable energy purchases will no longer reduce overall emissions. The signatories recommend a small, limited allowance set-aside (5.5 million credits through 2030) to preserve the environmental integrity and credibility of voluntary green power investments.

Clear power source disclosure helps customers understand what electricity they are buying and the emissions associated with it. CEAP’s new Best Practices for Power Source and Emissions Disclosure offers a practical U.S. framework for more accurate, transparent, and comparable electricity disclosures. The guidance recommends product-specific disclosure; accounting based on delivered attributes rather than utility-wide averages; …

This report by Eric O’Shaughnessy, Ph.D. is the result of a series of interviews in 2023 of renewable energy market stakeholders and follow-up interviews in 2024 with four large renewable energy developers about the financial impact of renewable energy certificates (RECs) on project development. The interviews highlighted that common financial models underestimate how RECs influence …

This document reproduces Center for Resource Solutions’ (CRS’s) responses to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s first Scope 2 Public Consultation Survey in January 2026. The survey sought stakeholder input on proposed updates and clarifications to the Scope 2 Guidance (2015), which addresses the accounting and reporting of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from purchased or acquired electricity, …

This document reproduces Center for Resource Solutions’ (CRS’s) responses to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Electricity-Sector Consequential Methods Public Consultation in January 2026. The survey sought feedback on consequential accounting methods for estimating avoided emissions from electricity-sector actions, which will feed into work in the Actions and Market Instruments (AMI) workstream. The responses presented here reflect …