Granular Accounting in GHG Protocol
Ineffective Clean Energy Claims
The climate clock is ticking faster than ever before. Rapid decarbonization is a necessity for a cleaner future. Electricity alone accounts for 40% of emissions of CO2 emissions (IEA 2023 Report). The commercial and Industry (C&I) sector alone consumes 60% of electricity worldwide (IEA 2022). However, the options consumers have today to claim “100%” renewable energy are flawed as they do not respect the physical realities of the grid.
The path to 100% allows “annual” matching of consumption with clean supply, effectively allowing continued fossil reliance in certain hours of the year. There is also little consideration for whether the clean power could be delivered to the consumer. Energy Attribute Certificates are a critical tool for tracking unique claims to clean power globally, but, they are not time-stamped creating a significant barrier to more effective clean energy markets and more robust claims.
💡Granular Certificates for Granular Matching
It’s time to fix clean energy markets and carbon accounting. Many academic studies (Princeton, Denmark Technical University, TU Berlin, IEA) and key stakeholders (EU, US Government, EU TSO) concluded that Granular Matching where sourcing time-stamped Granular Certificates match consumption in the same hour and within deliverable geographical boundaries is the solution for greater decarbonization, transparency and better reflection of grid realities.
Crucially, hourly matching also creates new demand signals for the technologies needed to complement renewables such as storage and clean-firm which are too often ignored with annual matching strategies. That’s why EnergyTag was created, to enable standardization and promotion of Granular Certificates and Matching.
Incorporating Granular Carbon Accounting into the GHG Protocol is crucial for enhanced transparency. The ongoing review of the GHG Protocol that offers a unique opportunity to address loose carbon accounting issues.
📑Summary
Key Goal: Require Granular Accounting in updated GHG Protocol.
Main Activities:
Creating a Playbook for outlining a proposal for feasible implementation and transition to Granular Accounting, addressing key challenges.
Enabling a common-voice and coordination venue for the GHGP Process going forward.
Coordinate communications and efforts in advocating for Granular Accounting in Scope 2.
Next Steps:
Publish Granular Accounting Playbook.
Prepare concrete proposed changes to the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance.
Hopefully participate in GHG Protocol Technical Working Group on Scope 2.
Contribution Options:
Reach out if you support Granular Accounting.
Help us advocate for Granular Accounting.
5 Key Themes
🔗Key People & Links
Chair: Killian Daly
Operations Coordinator: Yevheniia Kyrychenko
Contact
Emails: killian@energytag.org; yevheniia@energytag.org (for members only).