non-project specific RECs

NOT SURE I raised this Q before and here is what I got as an answer "Technically, the building or project owner would ‘own’ the RECs. For example, if they purchased 100% of the energy use for their building, the building owner would ‘own’ the rights of the environmental attributes of the renewable energy going online. They could promote this to their clients and say that 100% of the energy usage if offset with wind power, however, the individual clients could not promote them to their customers, as they would not have ownership. However, most tenants in a LEED EB typically pursue LEED CI and they would offset their own energy usage as well" In practical terms a LEED Certified building would provide 5 Credits under CI-SS so it maybe a wash with a non-certified building and 4 credits under CI for green power.

The theme that I have generally heard around this is that you need to be sure that the green power you buy is "allocated" to the project building, or in other words, the green power cannot be double-counted. For example if the company owns 10 buildings and buys enough green power to offset energy from half of those, it can't claim at every building that all the energy use has been offset. It would have to claim for every building that 50% was offset. This is fairly common-sense, but important to note because it's not always followed.

That is what I understood as well. What I was mentioning before is that if you are in an existing building you get 5 Credits under SS automatically if this building is LEED certified and 4 points more if you buy the Green Power credits under a CI LEED. So it helps for CI if you are in a certified buildings as these 5 credits under SS are than free credits. Of course on the end it depends on what rent one pays in a certified vs. non certified building.

John,
To clairfy: are you saying that if a LEED CI project is located in a building that went through LEED EB and purchased RECs to offset 100% of the building's energy use that the CI project would not automatically receive the 4 points for purchasing green power and would have to buy additional RECs to qualify for the credit?

The point is if you are in a LEED EB Building than you automatically get credit SS Option 1 (5 credits). So from that point of view it is a head start that may be equal to Green power being bought seperately. My interpretation is if the LEED-EB uses green power as part of the certification than you cannot buy add. power credit as CI. If yr LEED EB does not include green power than you can buy the green power under CI and get the best of all (5 credits under EB and 4-5 more under Green Power). That is how I understand the LEED rating system. Would need to communicate with Lana Malone on this if I am correct on this or not. This is from a credit point of view as I understand it.

LEED EBOM gets you UP to 5(6) Credits fom 25-100% so I would guess that if EBOM certification does not cover 100% than you get the SS credits (with less than 100% Green Power) and under CI you may buy the difference or all again if the difference is not allocated in equal % to the building. Best way is to contact "lana" at malone@renewablechoice.com to find out how to otimize this between EBOM and CI.

John,
Thanks for the reply

Hi all,

Any updates on counting EBOM green energy for a CI project situated in that EBOM building? Would it be considered double counting?

Thanks in advance,

I am not certain about this but I do not think that the allocation scenario applies in this situation. Allocation makes sense when considering multiple facilities, making a large green power purchase and allocating a portion to more than one. In this case the electric consumption for the EBOM project would likely include the electric consumption for the CI project. Assuming that is the case it does not make sense to me to require a separate green power purchase related to the same electric consumption. Based on that logic perhaps you could make the case for double counting in LEED, especially since it is not double counting in reality.

There is the issue of REC ownership raised above. Is the building owner who pursued the EBOM certification the same or different than the entity pursuing the CI certification?

Has anyone confirmed the answer to green power for EBOM and LEED-CI? I am working on a project that earned a point under LEED-EB for green power for a two-year contract. The project is now pursuing LEED-CI. Do they need to buy RECs again, or can they use the same purchase from EBOM certification? Thank you.