Good day,
I'm working on a Core and Shell project in Switzerland and I'm trying to achieve the Credit for "Green Power" but the utility company is Naturamade certified and, after checking the Green-e Standards I found some differences:
- Green-e expected to be included only renewable energy produced in the calendar year in which the product is then sold, the first three months of the following year and the last six months. According Naturemade for productions between January and May, the certificate is marketable until no later than the end of May of the following year, year of production and consumption must, however, be identical (reference: Section III.B Green-e Energy - National Standard, ZK-L5B Guidelines for certification Naturemade).
- Naturemade allows the separation between electrical energy and ecological added value, which may also be sold separately provided it is shown that the second is not sold twice. Green-and allows this separation (from the documents examined do not think so, ref. § III.C Green-e Energy - National Standard)?
if this practice is not allowed, this can be an obstacle to the recognition of Naturemade as analogous to Green-e?
So to get the credit can Naturamade be considered equivalent to Green-e?
Thank you very much!!!
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5867 thumbs up
January 8, 2013 - 2:42 pm
There are far more than the two provisions you cite above that must be examined for equivalency. Basically you need to compare the major provisions of the Green-e Energy Standard (ignore the sections about US specific issues) to Naturemade to demonstrate equivalency. These include the eligible renewables, accounting, tracking, being power outside any mandates, etc. Basically create a document that does a side-by-side comparison to demonstrate equivalency. Perhaps Naturemade would be willing to help you make the comparison.
Ai Engineering
Ai Engineering S.r.l.January 23, 2013 - 5:14 am
Thanks for your answer, I would like to ask you one more thing.
Is it possible to buy REC by an American Green-e certified REC provider for the project in Switzerland and obtain the "Green Power" credit?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5867 thumbs up
January 23, 2013 - 9:19 am
yes you can
Maciej Bieniek
April 11, 2013 - 4:57 am
Hi everybody,
I have very similar problem. I am doing that Credit in Poland and we do not have any external certification organization. Our energy provider gives us only its internal certificate to prove that provided energy is green. I have read here that it will be probably not enough to meet this Credit.
You have wrote, that it is required to write and prove the equivalency between Green-e standards (http://www.green-e.org/docs/energy/Appendix%20D_Green-e%20Energy%20Natio... ) and energy provider’s provisions. My question is if anybody has got all requirements listed and could send me on my email address that I do not have to spend time on writing an abstract of it?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5867 thumbs up
April 11, 2013 - 10:15 am
Equivalency needs to be demonstrated for these provision of the Green-e Energy National Standard v2.1- Section II, III (excluding G), Section IV (excluding A), Section V.
Adam Targowski
OwnerATsec
103 thumbs up
July 31, 2013 - 4:56 am
Marcus, I have two questions regarding this topic:
1. I saw that there was a new version of Green-e standard realised in May of this year - version 2.3 so I guess we should use this one now if we want to check equivalency of local standards, is that correct (or does LEED refer only to the version that you mentioned above)?
2. We want to check if our local energy provider complies with LEED/Green-e requirements. Do we have to have this provider approveed by USGBC too and send them some documentation comparing each section of Gree-e standard with energy provider's standards before applying for EA Cre 6?
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5867 thumbs up
July 31, 2013 - 9:35 am
You are only held to the version in effect at the time the LEED version you are working on was released. If you use the new one however that would not be a problem.
You could submit a LEED Interpretation to get a ruling before submitting your documentation or you could just submit it with your project documentation and it will be evaluated in the certification review process.