ar accelerator series – webinar II

Usually, EAC systems take care of this issue.  RE generator should not be able to register the same RE facility at more than one EAC system.  For example – I-REC has a minimum criteria for device registration. Additionally, it’s local issuers may mandate additional information to meet their national compliance or mandatory system purposes (such as national or regional RPS, quota systems or support systems). Third-party verification of production devices is also undertaken by the local issuer.  Please check here for more information. For TIGR project registration, parallel registration in other attribute tracking systems is prohibited and such declaration needs to be made by the registrant. Please check here for more information.

For other EAC systems, it’s recommended to check the eligibility criteria/code/regulations that ensures EAC system takes care of double counting issue or not.   

EACs serve an important role in encouraging the construction of new RE projects as well as continuing to financially support existing RE projects. We need more and more renewable energy capacity to decarbonize the grid. Individual corporate RE procurement decisions can send an important demand signal in the market e.g., if there is a demand for EAC only from newly built RE facility, it sends a signal to build new capacity in that market. Whereas buying from a 30-year-old large hydro project does not send the same signal in the market.   

EAC and GHG offset/carbon convey different claims.  As per the RE100 technical criteria, making a credible RE usage claim requires ownership of all environmental and social attributes associated with the generation that can be owned, and that none of these attributes have been sold off, transferred, or claimed elsewhere. Further, if separate environmental instruments have already been created for different attributes of power generation (e.g. carbon attributes), attribute aggregation can be achieved by bringing these instruments together – by demonstrating ownership and retirement of all instruments that make up a RE usage claim. Please check more information here.

Nuclear energy is carbon free electricity (at the generation phase), but it’s not a renewable energy source. Some market provides EACs to Nuclear (e.g. in Japan). It depends on what claims the company want to make; if they want to make claims for the use of RE, they shouldn’t be using EAC issued to the nuclear power generation.  In the case of biomass, sustainably sourced biomass in the power generation process is considered as RE source under RE100/CDP reporting.

To bring forward decarbonization, some advanced companies are looking for RE products which enable them to source green power 24 hours of each day, instead of monthly or yearly. However, currently EAC systems do not provide information on hourly generation. If 1000 MWh of RE is produced in Jan 2022, under the current system, EACs can be used to match with company’s annual electricity consumption in 2022. However, these companies believe that the demand for producing renewables when consumption is actually taking place is important.  

• In markets where the utility energy mix has 100% RE, companies should be able to make claims on RE consumption using the electricity bills from their supplier. RE100 has a criteria for Default delivered renewable electricity from the grid. Please check more information here.

• Companies using fossil fuel-based electricity delivered from the grid can match their consumption with EAC in order to make RE consumption claims. In this arrangement, they continue consuming electricity delivered from the grid but can make RE consumption claims via using EAC. EAC serves as an environmental attribute that enables its users to make RE consumption claims.

The RE100 technical criteria require corporate buyers’ procurement of renewable electricity to observe a fifteen-year commissioning or re-powering date limit. This is to encourage companies sourcing RE from newly built capacity in order to bring more RE capacity to the grid for broader grid decarbonization. The underlying principle is if the project is 15 years old, it has already been sustained (economically) and does not need more support.

RE generators in China participating in the green electricity trading program will be issued GECs via the platform.

Carbon credits and RECs are two different environmental instruments and there are no conversion factors. RECs convey information about the origin of electricity generation and enable exclusive claims by the user to make claims for renewable electricity consumption.