LEED should consider adding "hourly-matching" as a criterion to renewable electricity procured under Tier 2 and Tier 3. In other words, renewable energy (and its attendant RECs) procured under Tier 2 and 3 should be hourly-matched to the building's electricity consumption. This will more closely align the building's electricity consumption to off-site renewable energy generation, and better achieve the intent of this Credit to "reduce environmental and economic impacts associated with fossil fuel energy use and increase the supply of new renewable energy within the electrical grid."

If "hourly-matching" is adopted, Table 1 and the section on "RENEWABLE ENERGY CRITERIA" should be fundamentally revised. For instance,

(a) the Vintage provision under "Renewable Energy Environmental Attributes" should be voided;

(b) while LEED may still recognize the procurement of EACs as a means to increase the supply of renewable energy (although even this point is disputable), it should clarify that such procurement does not negate the fact that the building is still consuming grid electricity and emitting Scope 2 GHG emissions. In short, purchasing Tier 3 EACs (unless time- and location-matched) cannot be used to offset emissions from the base building electricity use.