We are working on a new building on a college campus for which the District purchases green power annually from the utility as part of a 20-year contract (with 13 years remaining). The green power is Green-e certified, so we were hoping to use the v4.1 Renewable Energy LEED credit to dedicate a sufficient amount of purchased green power from the existing contract to offset 35% of annual site energy for the new building.

Based on the language in the v4.1 reference guide, this should qualify as Tier 3 off-site renewables. From page 156: “Tier 3 off-site renewables are defined as those contracted from an existing renewable energy provider or off-site renewable systems that were contracted for the building after the renewable system came online more than five years before building occupancy.”

However, the LEED Online credit form states that we need to “show that the system was built within the last 5 years, or has been contracted specifically for the building project to be operational within two years of building occupancy.”

Given this discrepancy between the reference guide (more than five years) and the credit form (less than 5 years), we’d like to know which document supersedes the other. Does anyone have experience pursuing this path for the v4.1 Renewable Energy credit?