FAQ

Scope True is a coalitional effort to ensure that clean energy claims reflect reality. It advocates for “reality-based accounting,” requiring electricity use to be matched with clean power produced in the same hour and deliverable to the same grid. This approach promotes transparency and drives real emissions reductions.

Scope True will work to ensure the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHGP) Scope 2 updates reflect greater accuracy, integrity, and impact by requiring reality-based accounting to claim clean electricity usage.

There are three fundamental issues with today’s Scope 2 accounting:

• Location (Delivery not required) — Today, consumers can claim to be zero-carbon by buying EACs completely untethered from their own real consumption. One can be 100% renewable in New York based on RECs from Texas (which exports little electricity) or 100% Norwegian Hydro powered in Spain despite little interconnection between these countries. In fact, Norway exports seven times more certificates than physical electricity power.
• Time (Delivery not on time) — Today, a consumer can be “solar power all night long” or “wind-powered” based on wind-generated six months prior. This is not accurate or transparent and stifles critical signals for flexibility and storage.
• Existing CFE Reliance (Claiming what’s not yours) — Today, a company can claim to have zero emissions just by shuffling existing clean energy resources away from other consumers (e.g., 100% old hydro-powered).

Today, consumers can claim to consume clean power produced at any time of year and often from across a continent through the purchase of Energy Attribute Certificates. This is not representative of grid realities.

Reality-based accounting ensures consumption is matched with clean energy in the same hour from a location where electricity can be delivered and encourages new clean energy supply. This will make carbon accounting and clean energy claims more transparent and more impactful.

Reality-based accounting is a refinement of today’s Scope 2 accounting rather than a fundamental change of the method. The principles of attributing inventory emissions remain the same, but are updated to require greater accuracy and integrity compared to today's Scope 2 guidance.

In a recent blog post, the GHGP summarized the current proposal for updated Scope 2 market-based inventory rules, as well as the further development of consequential methodologies outside of the Scope 2 inventory. The proposed Scope 2 changes can be summarized as follows: a company’s market-based Scope 2 emissions should be calculated based on purchased clean energy that aligns with where and when a company consumes electricity, without relying on clean energy rightfully claimed by others.

This broadly aligns with reality-based accounting principles and ensures that claims to use clean energy are credible, bringing us closer to Scope True.

No. The proposed updates to the GHGP Scope 2 market-based are about improving the accuracy of inventory emissions by more closely aligning them with the physical and market realities of electricity systems. GHGP is not a target-setting body, and does not require companies to set any particular targets for their procurement. For companies that set targets based on their market-based inventory, they may set goals that are less than 100% hourly matched (which studies have found can be just as cost-effective as 100% annual goals). Companies can continue to pursue procurement strategies that best suit their organizations (e.g., annual matching, hourly matching, emissions matching), but they would report their market-based inventory emissions based on the updated standard. This increases the credibility and comparability of inventory emissions claims.

There is growing scientific consensus of the benefits of clean electricity procurement following reality-based accounting principles. Below is a non-exhaustive list of relevant studies:

1. Princeton University modelling on the effectiveness of electricity procurement strategies in the US shows that temporal matching “drives significant reductions in system-level CO2 emissions” while alternatives like annual matching and emissions matching “have zero or near-zero long-run impact on system-level CO2 emissions.”
2. The IEA finds that, for India and Indonesia “hourly matching strategies (as compared to annual) lead to a more diverse technology portfolio, including clean dispatchable generation and storage.” The analysis also shows hourly matching is more accurate in terms of emissions and system cost allocation.
3. TU Berlin EU research shows that 24/7 matching “leads to lower emissions for both the buyer and the system.”
4. Princeton University research also shows that hourly matching with new clean supply for US Clean Hydrogen is needed to avoid “significant excess emissions” that appear if alternatives like annual matching and emissions matching are used for clean hydrogen accounting.
5. Modelling from MIT shows that, in cases where large volumes of hydrogen are at play, hourly matching is critical to avoiding the production of hydrogen with emissions intensity many multiples that of grey hydrogen.
6. Princeton University research demonstrates the benefits of 24/7 PPAs and granular certificate trading.
7. TU Berlin research shows that hourly matching for EU Green Hydrogen ensures zero-emissions and avoids significant power price increases.
8. A study by the Florence School of Regulation shows significant benefits of 24/7 accounting for Green Hydrogen at little extra cost.
9. Research by the University of California Davis shows hourly accounting increases accuracy over annual accounting by up to 35%.

Robust empirical research from the world’s leading experts (TU Berlin, IEA, DTU, BNEF, Princeton) shows critical benefits that come with reality-based accounting:

1. Enables consumers to decarbonize their electricity demand in each hour and each grid.
2. Drives deeper decarbonization of electricity systems.
3. Provides system cost savings by supporting the effective integration of renewables on decarbonizing grids.
4. Enables the production of clean products, like hydrogen, without any fossil reliance.
5. Increases transparency and trust by linking production to consumption in "real-time" for more accurate and transparent accounting.
6. Provides incentives for storage, clean firm power, and demand flexibility.
7. Facilitates better risk management by avoiding volatile fossil-based electricity pricing.

As the deployment of low-cost variable renewables expands across the globe, the carbon-intensity of electricity grids increasingly varies by the hour.  As a result, annual averages often mask significant hourly variations in clean energy supply.

As discussed in this EnergyTag blog, hourly data tells us the true story, revealing the fluctuations in carbon-free energy availability, and showing us exactly when and where we need to focus our decarbonization efforts to build and integrate more clean energy with flexibility.

Hourly accounting also enables companies to target investments to address hours where they continue to rely on carbon-intensive electricity, supporting portfolios of technologies that provide clean electricity around the clock.  Research by Princeton, TU Berlin, and others finds that hourly matching can reduce fossil-fuel reliance and accelerate grid decarbonization.

Yes. Hourly accounting is doable today, and is fundamental to the operation of power markets across the world. Hourly accounting simply means collecting (or estimating) hourly electricity consumption data, collecting hourly data from purchased clean energy, and comparing them.

This accounting can be done today in spreadsheets, as illustrated here. Moreover, many service providers exist that help automate this process for companies. Examples include: Atmen, Blok-Z, Flexidao, Granular Energy, LevelTen Energy, Powerledger, Renewabl, and others. Finally, any company with a PPA in a deliverable grid will easily be able to account for it hourly, by using the hourly rather than annual aggregate generation data.

Many companies are focused on achieving 100% annual renewable matching, and a significant number have met this goal. This is an important milestone and companies should be celebrated for achieving it, but it’s important to recognize that this is not the same as achieving actual 100% clean electricity consumption (clean electricity delivered at all hours).

Full grid decarbonization is hard, but every incremental step towards 100% hourly matching delivers significant benefits on the path toward fully decarbonizing corporate demand and the broader grid. As Sam Kimmins, Head of RE100 writes, “we’re missing the point if we’re chasing a number. It’s about ultimately getting to the right destination – removing fossil fuels from global grids, fast.” Reality-based accounting sends the right signals to support those steps, and recognizes real progress from where we are today, even if 100% clean energy is further away.

Anyone can get started on the journey of achieving  around the clock clean electricity consumption.

This blog by Eurelectric highlights steps companies can take to get started:

• • Knowledge Building: read up about hourly matching.
  • Feasibility: understand your hourly matching score today, you are probably already further along than you think.
  • Planning: Develop a strategy for 24/7 and hourly matching.
  • Procurement: Look to procure the digital services and contracts in order to understand and track your hourly matching score.
  • Certification: Certify and verify your progress toward hourly matching.

Many organisations of all sizes are already doing clean energy hourly matching across five continents with millions of MWh matched. Large companies like Google, Microsoft, and Iron Mountain already have hourly matching goals, but smaller companies are doing this too. For example, GoodEnergy, a UK Energy supplier, is enabling hourly matching for its business customers, and Einstein Bagels is also doing hourly matching in the US. In addition, utilities and power suppliers, by necessity, have been doing hourly matching of deliverable energy for decades, and can play an increasingly important role by making hourly-matched products and green tariffs available for their customers of all sizes. A non-exhaustive list of utilities and energy suppliers offering hourly matching products around the world includes: A2A, Acciona, AES, Catalyst Power, Constellation, Duke Energy, Engie, Entergy Arkansas, Georgia Power, Good Energy, Greenko, Jera, Octopus Energy, Sembcorp, Sol Systems, SSE, Statkraft, TotalEnergies, Vattenfall, and more.

Leading research on hourly matching finds that 100% hourly matching can come at a cost premium relative to 100% annual matching. This reflects the (currently) higher cost of technologies needed to achieve full decarbonization, both for corporate demand and the broader electricity system.

However, research also indicates companies can achieve 80-95% hourly matching at a similar cost to 100% annual matching, while driving greater decarbonization impact.

For example:

• TU Berlin finds that 90-95% hourly matching in Europe can be achieved with “only a small cost premium” compared to annual matching.
• IEA finds that 80% hourly matching in the US, Europe, and China can be achieved at a price that is competitive with the industrial price for grid power.
• Transition Zero finds that achieving 70% hourly matching in India can be achieved at lower costs than annual matching, driving greater decarbonization and saving money for consumers.
• A MASDAR project in the UAE, claims 1GW baseload solar (from 5.3 GW solar and 19GWh of storage) at an approximate price of 65-70 USD/MWh LCOE.

As the costs of technologies like storage and clean firm generators decline, so too will the cost of around-the-clock clean power and truly zero carbon emissions.

Under the current GHGP Scope 2 update proposal, if you don’t have access to your primary electricity data on an hourly basis, you can turn annual or monthly electricity data into hourly data by using load profile estimates, based on the proposed load profile hierarchy. This means that a company could use an industry-specific load profile, or at the very least, can create a flat hourly load profile by dividing their monthly electricity consumption (provided on their monthly electricity bill) by the number of hours in the relevant month (see this spreadsheet here for an example). While using actual hourly electricity data is ideal, using a flat hourly load profile would still significantly improve the accuracy of Scope 2 carbon inventories relative to today’s system.

EnergyTag is proud to launch the Scope True brand as part of our ongoing commitment to advancing accurate and credible carbon accounting. While Scope True is an initiative led by EnergyTag, it is intentionally branded separately to focus on updating the GHG Protocol Scope 2 guidance and other international emissions accounting standards going through updates including SBTi and ISO.

We need to maintain a clear distinction between EnergyTag’s broader activities and Scope True's advocacy efforts. This approach allows Scope True to directly address the specific technical and policy challenges around Scope 2 accounting and build a joint coalition while EnergyTag continues to advance our mission of enabling granular energy certificates for broader clean energy transparency.

By establishing Scope True as a distinct brand, we aim to concentrate resources and messaging on this particular campaign, ensuring clarity and precision in our communications and advocacy on GHG Protocol Scope 2 guidance.

It’s likely that the opposite is true. Many companies already claim 100% clean energy consumption based on the existing standard, and according to RE100, over 60% of their members have 100% (annually-matched) renewable electricity targets on or before 2030. Once these companies reach their current goals and claim “mission accomplished” (i.e., the use of 100% clean energy and zero Scope 2 market-based emissions), they will have little incentive to do more, even as they continue to physically rely on carbon-intensive electricity. A more accurate Scope 2 standard that requires deliverable, hourly-matched clean energy procurement for market-based claims would incentivize continued investment past 2030 from these leading companies. If the existing standard remained in place, it is possible that we could see a slowdown in voluntary clean energy investment after 2030 once all of these current goals are met.

There is an effort within the GHGP process to come up with a methodology for estimating the impact of electricity procurement. The general principle is to estimate the emissions induced by electricity usage in one place and offset those emissions with estimated emissions reduction via clean electricity purchases in another place and time.

This is a technically difficult problem to solve given challenges with estimating marginal emissions factors and the fact that these might not even be the correct signal to drive the intended outcomes. Consequential accounting is also an exercise in counterfactuals, as it requires making assumptions about what would have happened in a world where a clean energy purchase did not occur.

For these reasons, marginal emissions offsetting is not proposed as a system for Scope 2 carbon inventories, which must be based on measured and verifiable data. However, the Scope TWG did vote to continue the development and improvement of consequential avoided emissions methodologies outside of the Scope 2 inventory, and the Independent Standards Board subsequently voted to continue development within the Actions and Market Instruments working group.

While these metrics won’t be available to be used for reductions of Scope 2 inventories, with further improvement, they could become a useful tool to enable more credible emissions offsets.

EnergyTag published a comprehensive FAQ on the GHGP direction of travel and details on the proposal.