Configuring an account to use a custom factor for market-based emissions reporting

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In some locations, one or more accounts might need to have a custom market-based emission factor applied. In IBM® Envizi ESG Suite, you can configure accounts to use a custom factor for market-based emissions reporting.

About this task

Custom market-based emission factors can be required when a location has an onsite power source, for example, a fuel cell plant. The associated challenge is that a custom factor must be selected through the standard emission factor selection algorithm. If you capture a custom market-based factor for a location, all electricity accounts at the location would then use the custom factor, and not just the account that is associated with the fuel cell plant.

To ensure that only the wanted accounts use the custom factor, create a custom region, and create a virtual location to separate out any custom factors that you want to apply to specific electricity accounts. This configuration has the following benefits:
  • Standard residual mix and grid average factors are still available if a custom factor is not added for a period
  • As custom factors change over time, users can set dates and create factors
  • The configuration works with standard audit tools such as the emission factors tab in the Market-based Emissions report and the Custom Factors page.

Procedure

  1. In the original location, keep all the regular grid electricity accounts.
  2. To create a custom region, follow the steps at Creating custom regions.
    Ensure that you select the correct country and state.
  3. Create a virtual location, and select the custom region that you created as the region for that location.
  4. If the accounts that require the custom factor have been created, move the accounts to the new virtual location.
  5. Create the custom market-based factor and select the custom region.
    Important: For location-based reporting, it is important that the accounts still have access to grid average factors. Therefore, ensure that you create the custom factor in the main custom market-based factor set.

Results

Market-based reporting uses the custom factor that is configured for the custom region without affecting regular grid electricity accounts. Location-based reporting uses the grid average factor.