Clean Energy Accounting Project

ACTIVE INITIATIVES

Market-based Accounting for Clean Fuels

Markets for clean fuels including biomethane, sustainable aviation fuels, and green hydrogen are evolving from ideas to realities. Utilizing the GHG Protocol’s Scope 2 Guidance as a model, this CEAP initiative will define a series of globally applicable market-based quality criteria for clean fuels that are sufficiently rigorous to support credible use claims as well as market-based direct emissions calculation guidance consistent with the principles and existing attributional accounting framework of the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard.

Indicators of Clean Electricity Procurement that Drive Supply

Voluntary buyers of renewable electricity are increasingly focused on enhancing the impact of their procurement. This CEAP initiative will produce consensus guidance for companies and other voluntary buyers of renewable energy in the United States seeking to increase the impact of procurement on clean electricity supply.

PLANNED INITIATIVES

Hourly Utility Product Design

Vertically integrated utilities are well-positioned to offer a range of hourly clean energy products. However, variations in each utility’s portfolio and circumstances can lead to significant differences in these offerings, making it challenging to ensure that the products being provided align with customer expectations and that the tracking and reporting of clean energy use remains credible and consistent. This initiative will develop best practices for designing hourly clean energy products for vertically integrated utilities in regulated markets. These best practices will focus on standardizing product design options, tracking requirements, and reporting mechanisms to ensure credible clean energy accounting and increase access to hourly products.

Best Practices for Power Source and Emissions Disclosure

The approximately 3,000 utilities in the United States face different regulatory requirements and other considerations that influence whether and how they calculate and communicate power source and emissions information to retail customers. This CEAP initiative will produce best practices for power source and emissions disclosure for select scenarios covering different electricity market structures and attribute tracking capabilities.

 

COMPLETED INITIATIVES

Calculating a Residual Mix

Credible residual mix information is important for accurate clean energy and GHG accounting and disclosure. This CEAP initiative will develop consensus guidance for the calculation of annual residual mixes and residual mix emissions factors for use in different voluntary and compliance disclosures.

Guidance for Supplier Clean Electricity Procurement

Existing international guidance on credible clean energy claims and GHG accounting does not fully support the objectives of companies with supply chain clean electricity procurement goals. This CEAP initiative produced guidance for companies setting and verifying the performance of supply chain clean electricity procurement requirements and incentives. A background paper on current Scope 3 GHG emissions accounting practices for supply chain clean electricity procurement was also released.

Accounting for Standard Delivery Renewable Energy

To address the inconsistencies when accounting for renewable energy that is not actively procured, CRS facilitated a series of virtual workshops to identify areas of consensus and quantification best practices.

Recommendations for a Federal Clean Electricity Performance Program

 

RELEVANT CRS RESOURCES

Hourly Renewable Energy Accounting

Accounting for Clean Energy Use

Regulatory Policy

Additional Resources