Setting a global standard for hourly energy certificates

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

The EnergyTag Initiative is an independent, non-profit, industry-led initiative to define and build a market for hourly electricity 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 Chandelar et al, Stanford University 2019]

The benefits of hourly energy certificates

Adopting a 24/7 hour-by-hour accounting period for certificates enables consumers to understand exactly where 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 a common, tradable instrument that provides traceability across markets for power, flexibility and carbon.

News and events

Consultation open until 5th February

The first consultation on the details of an hourly renewable energy certificate standard and how it should fit into existing markets is open for comment until 5th February. We are inviting comment on questions such as the size of an EnergyTag, whether it should include carbon emissions, how storage should be treated and many others.

The responses will feed into a white paper to be released in March. Please let us know your thoughts… you don’t have to be a member to participate: https://lnkd.in/dRH3zNp

EIT InnoEnergy hosted an interactive webinar on the EnergyTag Initiative in December with speakers from EnergyTag, Google, ENGIE and PwC. You can watch the recording here: https://vimeo.com/486887389/2ed55ce161

Webinar

Live Twitter feed

Retweet on Twitter EnergyTag Retweeted

Devon Swezey @DevonSwezey·

25 Feb 1364989750839570441

In September, Google announced the ambitious goal of operating entirely on carbon-free energy by 2030. In a new white paper released today, we detail the methodology and metrics that we use to measure 24/7 carbon-free energy (CFE). https://www.gstatic.com/gumdrop/sustainability/24x7-carbon-free-energy-methodologies-metrics.pdf

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EnergyTag @energy_tag·

22 Feb 1363870839096156160

The next meeting of the #EnergyTag demonstrator working group meeting is TOMORROW. We will review a list of potential pilots around the world.

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EnergyTag @energy_tag·

4 Feb 1357335632268251137

Our first consultation closes tomorrow in preparation for upcoming working group meetings and a white paper by the end of March. It's not to late to have your say:

EnergyTag Consultation

As part of the EnergyTag Initiative‘s mission to define and build a market for hourly energy certificates, standards and guidelines are develope...

docs.google.com

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The EnergyTag Initiative

EnergyTag is an independent, global, non-profit, industry-led initiative to define and build a market for hourly electricity certificates. The EnergyTag standard is a voluntary set of guidelines that work with existing certificate schemes such as GOs and RECs and with other procurement methods such as PPAs.

The initiative currently has three main activities;

Setting a standard for an hourly time-stamped energy certificate and guidelines for a voluntary market
Coordination of demonstrator projects to showcase technology and kick-start market development
Raising awareness of the importance of hourly accounting in energy

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How we work

We are independent from any particular technology or organisation, but our membership comprises over 60 leading companies, NGOs and academic institutions. Our Council and Advisory Board are working to define the first standard for energy certificates with a timestamp of 1 hour (or less) and set market guidelines for issuing and trading certificates. In parallel, the initiative will stimulate the first voluntary markets by coordinating a series of demonstrator projects around the world and will showcase existing technologies for real-time renewable energy tracking.

Demonstrator projects

The EnergyTag Initiative is coordinating a number of projects around the world to test how the standard works in practice and showcase technologies for 24/7 energy tracking. Please get in touch if you are interested in participating.

Timeline

The EnergyTag Initiative will publish its first set of guidelines in a white paper in early 2021 and the first Demonstrator projects will happen in parallel throughout 2021.

Our membership

Founding advisory board members include the world’s largest renewable producers and consumers, grid operators, start-ups and key organisations in the energy certificates market, including;

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Administration

Dr. Toby Ferenczi

Founder

Caroline Gentry

Coordinator

Phil Moody

Chair

Toby is founder of The EnergyTag Initiative and Director of International at OVO. He has a PhD in solar energy from Imperial College London, and an undergraduate in Physics from Cambridge University. His previous roles include Managing Director at VCharge (acquired by OVO) and cofounder at Engensa (acquired by Hanergy). He also has experience working for General Electric and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

EnergyTag coordinator Caroline Gentry is a freelance energy communications consultant and MBA candidate at Sussex University. Caroline spent many years developing power, natural gas and environmental attribute market indexes in the London and Washington DC/Houston offices of Argus Media, a leading price reporting agency. Recently she was editor of Engerati, focussing on electricity sector digitalisation and the clean energy transition.

EnergyTag Council and Advisory Board Chair Phil Moody has advised government and industry on energy markets since the late 1980s. He worked with stakeholders across Europe to create the voluntary RECS certificate market and founded the Association of Issuing Bodies, of which he was Secretary General from 2002 until this summer. The AIB now has 29 members, each appointed by an EU member state as the body responsible for its guarantee of origin system. The AIB is the leading enabler of international energy certificate schemes through the European Energy Certificate System – EECS – of which Phil was a co-author, and from which the CEN/CENELEC standard for guarantees of origin was developed. While stepping down as Secretary General, Phil retains an active interest in the ongoing development of the AIB, EECS and GOs.

The need forhourly certificates