Some of you are aware of my ongoing saga of off-site renewable energy and a LEED certification we are pursuing. The short version is that there is a new-construction corporate headquarters office building (Building #2 on the attached graphic). This building is pursuing LEED certification.
The company also just installed a 1 MW photovoltaic array at their manufacturing facility, offsite. I have all the calculations if anyone wants to get into the details, but this is enough to earn all 5 Renewable Energy points under Tier 2 for LEED BD+C v4.1.
Problem is... I can't get my client's internal subject matter expert to agree with me that: despite the fact that they use all the electricity they generate at the Building #1 (manufacturing facility) meter, since the company in question owns all of the assets here they can choose to retire the environmental attributes of that power to either Building #1 (Option 1) or Building #2 (Option 2).
I've spoken with EA TAG members (Alex Pennock, Bob Maddox, Jamy Bacchus) on this too, who confirmed I'm not crazy in my logic, and offered to have a call. That was in April, and I've gone back and forth on this with my client contact several times since then. (The most fun phase of a project where construction is complete but final LEED certificaiton isn't.)
And I just got the following reply, from my contact, via their 'SME':
With that said, regarding the Renewable Energy points, the concern is if [CEO] gets ask from a investor about our renewable energy at [Building #1]. From a subject matter expert standpoint, we already use 100% of the electricity from the solar field at the [Building #1] site and that is reflected in our external reporting. To assign a measurable benefit to any other site would fit the textbook definition of “double counting”. Double counting is considered questionable and could be easily discerned by external parties thus exposing [company] to risk.
Apparently I am not a Subject Matter Expert on this... unfortunately I think the internal SME thinks I'm biased to the point that my integrity is compromised because these points are the difference between Silver and Gold certification.
But I feel that it's in the client's best interest to have BOTH a LEED Gold headquarters and a 1MW solar asset. AND that they're not wrong in the slightest to do so, as long as they don't assign the environmental attributes of that energy to both buildings.
Anyway, does someone have a client who has achieved this LEED credit, with off-site Tier 2 renewable energy? Preferabily a Fortune 500 level company? In addition to the call with the EA TAG members, which I'm going to schedule, I'd love to have this client's 'SME' hear from a peer at a company instead of a consultant.
