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.
- Market-based Accounting for Clean Fuels Initiative Proposal
- Working Group Organizational Roster
- Clean Fuels in the Aviation Sector
- Clean Fuels in the Industrial Sector
- Clean Fuels in the Ground Transportation Sector
- Clean Fuels in the Residential and Commercial Sector
- Clean Fuels in the Maritime Shipping Sector
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.
- Indicators of Clean Electricity Procurement that Drive Supply Initiative Proposal
- Indicators of Clean Electricity Procurement that Drive New Supply Working Group Roster
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 Calculating Residual Mix
- Residual Mix Applications and Existing Data
- Calculating a Residual Mix Initiative Proposal
- Working Group Organizational Roster
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.
- Scope 3 GHG Accounting for Upstream Clean Electricity Use
- Guidance for Supplier Clean Electricity Procurement
- August 2023 Guidance for Procuring Clean Electricity in Supply Chains Webinar
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.
- Accounting for Standard Delivery Renewable Energy
- Webinar: CEAP Standard Delivery Renewable Energy. Presented Tuesday, March 16th, 2021. You can Watch the Video and View the Presentation.
- Data Sources: Accounting for Standard Delivery Renewable Energy
- Recognition of Standard Delivery Renewable Energy in Different Programs and Standards
Recommendations for a Federal Clean Electricity Performance Program
- Priorities for Voluntary Renewable Energy Under the Clean Electricity Performance Program
- Measuring What an LSE Manages Under a Federal Clean Energy Standard
- Clean Energy Baselines for Load-Serving Entities Under a Federal Clean Energy Standard
RELEVANT CRS RESOURCES
Hourly Renewable Energy Accounting
Accounting for Clean Energy Use
- Making Credible Renewable Electricity Usage Claims (RE100)
- Additionality and Renewable Energy Certificates: Understanding the Value of REC Claims
- Overview of International Voluntary Renewable Electricity Procurement and Public Claims
- Double Counting Best Practices (North American Association of Issuing Bodies)
Regulatory Policy
- Overview of Renewable Portfolio Standard Design Options from the U.S. Experience
- Corporate and Voluntary Renewable Energy in State Greenhouse Gas Policy: An Air Regulator’s Guide
- Voluntary Renewable Energy Set-Asides for Cap-And-Trade
- Two Markets, Overlapping Goals: Exploring the Intersection of RPS and Voluntary Markets for Renewable Energy in the U.S. (Clean Energy States Alliance [CESA])
- Tracking Emissions Associated with Energy Serving Load in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) States: A Feasibility Study (Regulatory Assistance Project [RAP])
- The Intersection between Carbon, RECs, and Tracking: Accounting and Tracking the Carbon Attributes of Renewable Energy (Environmental Tracking Network of North America [ETNNA])
- Policies for Enabling Corporate Sourcing of Renewable Energy Internationally
