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

Calculating Hourly Utility Emission Factors

Demand for information about hourly matching of electricity generation to customer load, such as 24/7 clean energy, is increasing. This CEAP initiative will develop best practices for calculating hourly emission rates for different utility product offerings. This initiative’s scope was revised from a previous one on Hourly Clean Electricity Utility Product Design Options to complement work by the Regulatory Assistance Project (RAP).

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