Product Spotlight: Renewable Energy Credit Tracking

1. Visualize your renewable offsets
2. Analyze actual vs. guaranteed production
3. Transparency into production issues

With the rise in net zero emissions goals as well as national building performance standards, onsite renewable generation or RECs are becoming widespread. The issue, however, is that renewable production data exists among various platforms, making tracking and reporting the performance of your renewables a challenge.

WatchWire allows you to view the percentage of your electricity consumption that is renewable vs. purchased from the grid, incorporating any purchased RECs from contracts, on-site generation, and purchased electricity from the grid obtained from your utility bills.

What are RECs?

Renewable energy generated on a mass scale by wind farms, solar farms, or hydroelectric dams can be procured from an energy supplier or harnessed in the form of renewable energy credits (RECs) or green tariffs. Renewable energy credits are tradable, non-tangible commodities that represent proof that 1 MWh of electricity was generated from a renewable energy resource and was then fed into the shared system of power lines that transport energy. Companies may purchase renewable energy credits along with their electricity, and the RECs certify that a certain amount of the electricity was from a renewable source.

How it works 

Module: Sustainability

WatchWire provides one centralized platform to consolidate all onsite renewable production data (whether it is solar, fuel cell, battery, etc.) across multiple sites and vendors.  WatchWire is vendor agnostic, delivering either a lagged or real-time data integration.  Some existing integrations include Tesla, SolarCity, Bloom Energy, Amplus, CleanMax, and NEFIN.  With centralized interval-level production, the production can be rolled up by capacity, technology, geography, and/or time period. In addition, WatchWire can help you decide which form of renewable energy generation and/or procurement is right for you. 

When it comes to uploading and tracking RECs, the process is simple, requiring the user to upload all required fields and characteristics in an easily viewable system:  resource type, quantity, price, and applicable properties are all required fields.

• Renewable Production Tracking:
  • WatchWire centralizes all onsite renewable production data (whether solar, fuel cell, battery, etc.) across multiple sites and vendors.

• Visualize Renewable Offsets
  • Easily view the percentage of your electricity consumption that is renewable vs. purchased from the grid, incorporating any purchased RECs from contracts, on-site generation, and purchased electricity from the grid obtained from your utility bills.

• Sustainability Reporting
  • With integrations to several sustainability reporting frameworks, you can easily integrate your accurate emissions data into your sustainability reporting efforts.

• Financial Reporting
  • WatchWire gives you the ability to analyze actual vs. guaranteed production for agreements that have these clauses, like PPAs and lease agreements.

• Operational & Engineering Analytics
  • Alert your operations or engineering teams of any issues with renewable production

Use Cases

Energy Managers and Procurement teams will find our REC tracking features to be particularly useful. Managing new renewables that the team has procured is a crucial piece in properly managing the energy efficiency and emissions reductions of a facility or organization. As these managers implement conservation measures, monitor energy consumption, assess business decisions for sustainability, and seek out opportunities for increasing energy efficiency, they will find that the sustainability module is a comprehensive and easy-to-use roll-up of all the necessary sustainability performance data making it easy to coordinate future projects. 

Sustainability Managers and Analysts with ambitious environmental goals will also find REC tracking to be essential in their efforts to reduce carbon emissions and energy use. 

Importance

As more states than ever begin to roll out ambitious building performance standards and ordinances with the aim of decarbonizing their cities and the built environment, companies will need to comply by meeting the minimum standards for emissions thresholds and lowering their carbon and energy usage. In order to comply with laws like New York Local Law 97, companies may turn to purchasing renewable energy credits if they have no flexibility in producing on-site renewable energy instead. 

RECs provide you with definite proof that you are using renewable energy, which investors and consumers love to see. Additionally, RECs negate the need to invest in capital-intensive projects, like installing solar panels. They also serve as a means of reducing emissions without implementing stringent efficiency measures. This is ideal if you have a large portfolio of buildings or your company has branches in multiple locations.

 If your organization has buildings/facilities in a state or city that is working towards 100% renewable energy, you’ll soon need to transition to procuring renewables like wind or solar to power your operations. And if you’re already using renewable energy, renewable energy generation tracking is a must. You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Just like it’s important to track your energy use to make sure you don’t have inefficiencies in your buildings, it’s important to track your renewable energy generation to ensure it performs up to par. For example, you should track and report actual production vs. guaranteed/warranted production in order to true up against contracts. Also, this allows you to analyze contract-for-differences settlement values against various market hubs and your own energy load. Additionally, tracking your renewable energy generation allows you to:

• Quantify avoided utility costs and emissions
• Track portfolio carbon offset goals
• Prioritize additional renewable investments/deployments

About WatchWire

WatchWire is a market-leading sustainability and energy data management platform that uses cloud-based software to collect, automize, and analyze utility, energy, and sustainability data metrics. WatchWire streamlines, automates, and standardizes your sustainability reporting process by integrating directly and/or providing reporting exports to ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager, LEED Arc, GRESB, CDP, SASB, GRI, and more. The platform provides customizable dashboards, which allow asset managers, sustainability managers, engineers, and more to monitor individual key performance indicators (KPIs) and create custom views for specific use cases. WatchWire provides:

• Automatic collection of energy, utility, sustainability, and emissions data through real-time metering. The data is then fully audited and organized in one place
• GHG emissions tracking
• Goal tracking (e.g., Net Zero, SBTi, waste diversion)
• Carbon offset view of power purchases from the grid vs. on-site renewables generated vs. off-site RECs.
• Opportunities to implement projects (track EEMs) and monitor distributed energy resource production (e.g. on-site solar)

To discover more about WatchWire and its capabilities, you can visit our website, blog, or resource library, request a demo, or follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Twitter to keep up-to-date on the latest energy and sustainability insights, news, and resources.