I am working on a project that is performing it's own carbon offsets - ensuring that each investment in a carbon offset project has additionality, permanence, verifiability, etc. While this does not meet the stated intent of the credit (to encourage the development and use of grid-source, renewable energy) it certainly meets the intent of green power itself (sequestering carbon and reducing GHGs). Additionally, while the project will not the buying a two year contract, it will be committing to offset 100% of it's carbon footprint for a minimum of two years. I am planning on including how the carbon footprint will be calculated and details on offset projects that have been invested in by similar past projects.
Does anyone know of a precedent where carbon offsets have been accepted for this credit? The project is making an impressive commitment so I am hoping there is some way to make this work. I am also open to any advice on how this could be best presented to the GBCI. Thanks!
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5868 thumbs up
May 8, 2012 - 10:56 am
You are basically trying to make the case for equivalency with Green-e. So make that direct comparison to the specific elements of the Green-e standard as applicable.
Also check the interpretations on this issue if you have not already done so.
Anke Koch
Architect LEED APIngenieurbüro Anke Koch GbmH
6 thumbs up
March 11, 2015 - 4:21 am
Dear Juliana and LEED community,
it seems that we are facing the same problem: our project has 19784 sf and the whole project is supplied with green power, and contracts last at least 2 years. When filling the template form of EAc4, our total green power purchased over a two year period sums up to 433200 kWh.
We want to use Option 2 of EAc4. According to the reference guide this would be our two year-consumption per sf: 433200 kWh / 19784 sf = 21,9 kWh/sf. This should fulfill the requirements of an exemplary performance (which is a minimum of 16 kWh/sf over a two year period).
However, the EAc4 template calculates differently: the last row of page one shows a two year consumption filled automatically by the template. In our case it shows 10.95 kWh/sf. As mentioned above, it should show 21,9 kWh/sf.
We did the math over and over again, since we couldn't believe that the template might be wrong. Can you help us out on this? We need this EP for other projects and want to understand how much annual consumption of green power we actually need. We cannot believe that in our case we would have to purchase approx. 600000 kWh over a two year period (more than we need) in order to fulfill the credit's EP-requirements.
Thanks in advance!
Anke
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5868 thumbs up
March 11, 2015 - 9:55 am
Anke,
Just to be sure you are in a CI forum and am not sure where some of your numbers are coming from. Maybe I am missing a Reference Guide change but mine reads that you need 8 kWh/sf yr to earn the credit and double that to earn EP. This translates to 16 kWh/sf for the credit and 32 kWh/sf for EP since the term is two years.