I can find no evidence that the 2-year period needs to start as soon as the building is finished, is that the case?
I have one project that wants to wait for about 3-6 months for all tenants and contracts to be in place. So the contract will start shortly afterwards, is this ok? (We will not submit Construction submittal until we have the contract).
Another project will be completed in two stages within the same project. One part could start their 2-year contract once they are done and the other half once they are completed )a year later) right? So we would have two contracts starting at different times, but the total amount of kWh would be sufficient to meet the credit.
Thank you!
Kristina Bach
VP of InnovationSustainable Investment Group
151 thumbs up
November 2, 2017 - 8:39 am
It somewhat depends if you are doing the one-time REC purchase (i.e. in bulk) or if you are contracting with your local utility who provides green-e power (i.e. billed on-going/monthly).
For RECS - the contract definitely does not have to be tied to project occupancy/completion. I've had success with projects adding this credit as a last-minute addition right before their Construction Final submission and making their purchase/contract then (6-9 months post-occupancy). Additionally, as the amount of RECs you have to buy is based entirely on the modeled electricity usage in EAp2 and not your actual usage, you can also make your Green Power purchase as soon as the energy model is approved. I've also had projects do this - especially if REC prices are really low (one project bought their RECs about 2 years before occupancy - very long construction schedule). Your timing here really just has to be after EAp2 is fully approved (as that sets your annual electricity amount for your REC purchase calculations) and then the actual purchase/contract can be made anytime before you submit EAc6 (as you have the actual contract/proof of purchase before you physically submit this credit). The specifics from there are really what works best for your project.
For a local utility contact - I would anticipate that would have to be tied more closely to occupancy as they would need to be providing active service to the building. So that would have to start after you were operational, but the specific timing for when it started would still just be a minimum of before you submitted EAc6 (so you have proof of that contract and first payment for uploading with your submission).