Green Power Five Year Contracts

That might be possible depending upon the nature of the green power purchase. Make sure to explain the rational very thoroughly and make the commitment strong.

Thank you for bringing this up! Hi! I am a REC retailer and I strongly encourage LEED to consider changing the requirement that RECs be delivered annually under a 5 years contract. Since you require Green-e RECs - and they EXPIRE every year, AND the REC market is completely unpredictable it is completely ridiculous to expect a retailer to make a guess at how much RECs are going to cost 5 years from now and promise that to a buyer. What difference does it make if the RECs are bought and delivered up front vs delivered annually? What is the rationale behind that? The previous version v2009 allowed 2 years to be bought and delivered up front. I don't understand this change. Please explain why you think this is important because it is a huge risk to the REC sellers with no clear benefit to the buyer or LEED or the environment or the REC market in general.

I agree, it does not make sense to me either. An annual purchase with the first year up front and a commitment to purchase the remaining 4 years should work as well.

Unfortunately that is not a great solution either. How can a LEED project commit to and budget for 4 years of REC purchases without knowing the price they will pay? As a REC provider, I cannot predict how much RECs will be next year or any year after that. This is why they should just purchase them all up front at the current market pricing. This is why this statute doesn't work. LEED needs to change this so 5-year purchases can be made up front. Once again, I will emphasize, that Green-e RECs EXPIRE every year and therefore we cannot "stock up" to cover a 5 year purchase at the price we paid for them this year. I ask someone at LEED to PLEASE look at this and CHANGE it!

Hello there, we have the same problem, we can't find a green power producer willing to hand out 5-year contracts. The maximal period of time we can get is a 3-year contract. So I assume, we can conlcude a 3-year contract in combination with a letter of commitment to meet the annual energy green power requirements for the following 2 years ? Did this practice lead to success and the corresponding points were granted?

Hi! I finally got a reply from a LEED rep saying that you CAN purchase all 5 years up front, so that is what we have been doing and have not had any issues. Please feel free to contact me if have any questions.

Here is the email reply I got from LEED:

Dear Heather,

Thank you for your feedback regarding LEED v4 EAc Green Power and Carbon Offsets.  Please note that one-time purchases of RECs and carbon offsets are still accepted for LEED v4 projects.  Additionally, the LEED v4.1 guidance states that "The executed contract [for EACs] must specify the purchasing goals and is valid for the duration indicated in the credit requirements, or includes a bulk purchase amount with the total purchase amount matching the total annual amount indicated in the credit requirements multiplied by fifteen years."

If you have any further questions or concerns about this inquiry, please feel free to respond directly to this email. For any new inquiries, please contact us at gbci.org/contact.

Best Regards, 

Megan Snyder

Green Building Specialist, LEED AP ID+C 

Hi Heather,

Does a one time purchase also require a contract ? or can we just purchase REC's for all 5 years upfront from the REC websites ??

I would definitely do a contract for the extra documentation of the length, volume and purpose of the purchase. Especially because it does state that you should get a 5 year "contract". 

Heather thank you for posting this email from Dec 2 2020 Megan Snyder!