We constantly see more content, education, reports, news and announcements shared on the topic of certificate management, 24/7 carbon-free energy and clean energy sourcing. Here we highlight the best news and reports alongside our own regular insight articles from July 2024.
What we’re reading
Impacts of the US’ 45V hydrogen tax credit rely on its three pillars
- The United States Treasury Department has yet to publish the final rules on the Section 45V Clean Hydrogen Production Tax Credit and debate over the “three pillars” — the requirements of using incremental, deliverable, hourly-matched clean energy — still continues.
- In a new report, Energy Innovation Policy and Technology LLC distils evidence showing the importance of those three pillars. Weakening or removing the pillars could set back the US’s efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2-3 percentage points, delay innovation in the industry, and allow certain volumes of production to be dirty when “they would otherwise be clean”.
- With strong 45V rules in place, consumers and US industries benefit. For example, subsidized electrolyzers must, in parallel, bring new, local, hourly-matched clean energy online, protecting consumers from higher costs linked to increased electricity demand. And US industries will benefit from domestic electrolyzer manufacturing, alignment with trading partners in the EU and supported growth beyond the tax credit’s lifetime.
Quantifying system level impacts of hourly matching
- TU Berlin published a new study on the impacts of 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE). TLDR; companies following hourly matching procurement strategies can consistently and significantly reduce their own and system-level emissions. This applies across different regional contexts, accounting for diverse resource availabilities, energy policies, and degrees of interconnection, to name a few. It also considers varying levels of grid cleanliness by region and over time.
- To balance the strong incentives of hourly matching with system costs, this working paper from MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research recommends a shift towards quarterly matching in the short-term and hourly matching in the long-term. The authors argue that moving to quarterly matching now would address seasonal imbalances in CFE supply and demand, while technologies needed for hourly matching are in development.
Australia’s new GO Scheme incorporates two certificates and the potential for time matching
- After a successful trial focusing on hydrogen and hydrogen-carrying energy in June 2021, Australia’s GO (Guarantees of Origin) Scheme is now being updated to include more products.
- The expanded Scheme aims to measure, track, verify and certify carbon emissions and other attributes of Australian renewable energy products. REGO Certificates will track renewable electricity generation, be available for trading, and may include time matching. Product GO Certificates will verify the carbon intensity of products across their lifecycle.
- Check out this article from Holding Redlich to dive deeper into the GO Scheme and Australia’s net zero progress.
An argument for quality over quantity in emissions reduction approaches
- James Temple at the MIT Technology Review argues companies, specifically Big Tech leaders, should focus on the quality of their emissions reduction approaches as opposed to the quantity (aka meeting a numerical target).
- Using carbon offset credits and RECs, which historically don’t allow for time matching, may not be the most honest or effective approach, according to Temple. A report from Amazon Employees for Climate Justice estimates that 78% of Amazon’s U.S. energy comes from non-renewable sources despite the company’s net-zero claims.
- In comparison, Google is taking “more defensible” steps through hourly and geographic electricity consumption matching, and funding early-stage climate solutions.
- Temple references a new approach, called the “contribution model”, which proposes a focus on the quality of climate action. Under this model, after reducing their emissions as much as possible, companies should then focus their efforts and money on the solutions achieving the maximum climate benefit.
- Combining specific net-zero emissions approaches (i.e. 24/7 and geographic matching) with high quality, climate positive projects, could provide a more extensive tool for companies to tackle climate goals.
What we’re writing (and saying)
Empowering the energy transition with increased granularity
- On a recent episode of The Sustainability Podcast, our CEO
Toby Ferenczi
joined host
Richard Rys
to dive into the vital role of granular data and certificates in achieving grid decarbonization.
- “Today timing is everything” and in order to send the right signals (for renewable resource development e.g.), energy consumers need a reliable time-specific mechanism. Granular production and consumption data, in combination with hourly- or sub-hourly-backed certificates, gives consumers that signalling power.
- Listen in for more on the future of renewable energy systems, markets, technologies and tools.
How green is your charge? Granular certificates at the charging station
- In a new collaboration with LichtBlick SE, decarbon1ze GmbH and Energy Track and Trace, we are bringing new levels of transparency to EV charging stations.
- This project proves the functionality of granular certificate use in Germany, from issuance and use in the Energy Track & Trace system to cancellation in the Federal Environment Agency’s (Umweltbundestamt’s) registry of guarantees of origin (HKNR).
Granular Energy in Ireland, the UK, and the US
- ESB recently announced the results of our first pilot stage, in which generation data from ESB’s Carnsore wind farm was directly matched and reported to a sample of commercial customers’ hourly consumption. Following this success, ESB and Granular Energy will explore how our platform can further benefit ESB’s customers and internal trading teams.
- We hosted a workshop for UK energy suppliers and buyers to discuss the implications of 24/7 CFE. Speakers from AFRY, Nordpool, Climate Group and DLA Piper joined to cover topics from 24/7 CFE products, regulatory constraints, transparency and more. Read our key takeaways here!
- Granular Energy was selected for the 2024 DEIC accelerator program, led by Dominion Energy and QTS Data Centers. As part of the Hyperscaled track, our projects will focus on solutions for utilities and data centers. The program will run from early September through November 2024.
