Allocating certificates
In IBM® ESG Suite, a methodology is applied to allocate unbundled certificates across the electricity consumption of an organization.
Compliance & Jurisdiction
Certificates allocated against this category are the result of grid consumption multiplied by the renewable power percentage for the region and month. This renewable power percentage is managed by Envizi ESG Suite at a monthly level and is updated as required.
Green power
Green power, or bundled certificates, are certificates that are obtained by the organization through the purchase of renewable power through an electricity retailer. The organization doesn’t take formal ownership of the certificates purchased but can make claims to the certificates in market-based reporting.
This category of certificates requires that green power is captured in the same account as regular black grid electricity. For more information about how RECs are captured and handled in Envizi ESG Suite, see Renewable energy certificates.
Allocating unbundled certificates
Unbundled certificates are a useful tool when looking to reduce Scope 2 market-based emissions. The difficulty is understanding how these certificates can be applied to electricity consumption to achieve the emissions credit.
- Location
- Level 3 group
- Level 2 group
- Level 1 group
- State
- Country
- Organization
Methodology
For each level of allocation, the method determines the subtotal of remaining kWh, that is,
consumption that is not covered by certificates, for each month of data. The method then prorates
certificates captured in the data type against the subtotal. This is seen in the columns beginning
with Certificates -
. Then, prorated monthly certificate values are subtracted to
arrive at the next subtotal.
Location | Month | Electricity consumption in kWh | Certificates in kWh | Consumption with no certificates in kWh |
---|---|---|---|---|
Oakland office | January | 7,329 | 1,603 | 5,726 |
Oakland office | February | 9,302 | 2,035 | 7,267 |
Oakland office | March | 7,855 | 1,719 | 6,136 |
Sydney office | January | 8,162 | 1,786 | 6,376 |
Sydney office | February | 5,030 | 1,100 | 3,930 |
Sydney office | March | 8,030 | 1,757 | 6,273 |
Office Space | N/A | 45,708 | 10,000 | 35,708 |
Handing negative values
This report can apportion certificates across periods that contain negative consumption values. Organizations may have situations where accounts are added to true-up consumption by adding negative kWh consumption values for a site.
The system prorates and allocates certifications to those months with negative consumption. As a
result, when you drill down to a monthly level, incorrect monthly values appear in the
Certificates
column. However, the summary rows show the correct values as the
negative and positive values are summed to produce the correct value.
Subtotal - Location kWh
column are set to
zero and the rows with positive values are shown prorated based on distributing the negative sum
proportionally. The rows with negative values in the Subtotal - Location kWh
column
are set to zero and the rows with positive values are shown prorated based on distributing the
negative sum proportionally.
Accounts | Month | Subtotal - Bundled Certificates kWh | Certificates - Location kWh | Subtotal - Location kWh |
---|---|---|---|---|
Account A Sum | 23,102 | 0 | 20,397 | |
Account A | Jan | 7,421 | 0 | 6,552 |
Account A | Feb | 8,290 | 0 | 7,319 |
Account A | Mar | 7,391 | 0 | 6,526 |
Account B Sum | 19,598 | 0 | 17,303 | |
Account B | Jan | 7,528 | 0 | 6,647 |
Account B | Feb | 6,117 | 0 | 5,401 |
Account B | Mar | 5,953 | 0 | 5,256 |
Account True-up Sum | -5,000 | 0 | 0 | |
Account True-up | Jan | -1,722 | 0 | 0 |
Account True-up | Feb | -1,556 | 0 | 0 |
Account True-up | Mar | -1,722 | 0 | 0 |
Grand Total | 37,700 | 0 | 37,700 |