Defining and building a market for hourly energy certificates

“Our mission is to accelerate the clean energy transition through 24/7 energy tracking”

The EnergyTag Initiative is an independent, non-profit, industry-led initiative to define and build a market for Granular Certificates that enables energy users to verify the source of their electricity and carbon emissions in real-time.

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The need for
hourly certificates

It’s a cruel irony that the more successful we are at deploying renewable energy the harder it gets to integrate that energy into the grid. Current renewable energy procurement methods match average supply and demand over a 12-month period. This works well when there is only a small amount of renewables but as the share of wind and solar increases this method significantly overestimates carbon savings* and means that organisations following today’s criteria for being ‘100% renewable’ still rely on fossil fuel electricity from the grid many times a day throughout the year. Without sufficient precision, energy consumers lack visibility on the source of their energy and carbon emissions, and there is no incentive for energy storage and flexibility.

* [de Chalendar et al, Stanford University 2019]

The benefits of hourly energy certificates

Adopting an hourly accounting period for certificates enables consumers to understand exactly where and when their energy is coming from and what their carbon emissions are at any given moment. This benefits consumers and the environment in several ways:

  • Builds trust by linking production to consumption in ‘real-time’
  • Supports storage and flexibility by providing a new price signal
  • Enables accurate carbon accounting by tracking hourly carbon data
  • Supports new market models such as nodal pricing

Our goal is to establish the Granular Certificate as a common, tradable instrument that provides traceability across markets for power, flexibility and carbon.

Supporting Organisations

Organisations that support EnergyTag include the world’s largest renewable producers and consumers, grid operators, start-ups and key organisations in the energy certificates market:

Funders

Updates

We are hiring!

Are you looking to make an impact? Do you want to be part of transforming global clean energy markets to deliver the 24/7 clean energy we need? If so, apply for the position of Operations Manager to contribute to the movement.

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