Hello Everyone,
We are preparing our Client to buy Green-e certified energy. We don't know if he has to buy also GOs or carbon offsets for district hot water that the building is supplied with. We have this source of energy in Energy Star Portfolio Manager. The building is supplied with hot water for the heating system.
What is more the hot water supplier (French Veolia) buys each year great amount of renewable energy sources RES. So do we still have to buy certificates or carbon offsets if Veolia does?
I'm confused. Hope for help.
Izabela
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Trista Brown
Project DirectorWSP USA
449 thumbs up
August 29, 2017 - 3:01 pm
Hi Izabela, all energy use in Portfolio Manager needs to be accounted for under this credit. So you'll need to address the energy associated with the district hot water.
GOs are an optional compliance path for European projects. Green-e RECs and Green-e carbon offsets are the standard compliance path, but if those aren't available, you can use GOs. See the Europe ACPs here (https://www.usgbc.org/resources/leed-ebom-2009-reference-guide-supplemen...) for additional information on complying using GOs instead of Green-e.
For your last question - the amount of renewable energy purchased by the utility or supplied by the grid doesn't factor into the LEED credit or calculation. You'll need to cover energy used by the building regardless of what the utility does with its energy portfolio.