Pick up the phone, call the local utility and a couple of green power providers—companies that sell renewable energy credits (RECs), which provide funding to renewable energy generation, supporting its development. Give them your project’s estimated energy consumption. Sit back and receive estimates.

That’s all it takes to find out what a purchase of offsite renewable energy will cost, so be sure to consider it—you might be pleasantly surprised. The credit requires you to offset only a percentage of your electricity consumption with RECs to earn points (see diagram at right). You can make a stronger environmental statement and earn an extra Exemplary Performance point through IDc1 by offsetting 70% (100% for CI projects).

Why green power?

Some building owners may hesitate to pursue this credit because they don’t believe that the extra cost brings a direct, tangible benefit to their building.

However, nonrenewable electricity production is a huge contributor to pollution and global climate change, and buying green power creates incentives for further development of renewable energy facilities. The benefits of renewable energy are well-understood by the general public, and so buying green power can help you advertise your commitment to environmental responsibility. Many projects display their renewable energy certificates prominently.

Making it cost-effective

Many projects see this credit as low-hanging fruit, and may pursue it depending on how many points they need to achieve their LEED goals. Because the credit focuses exclusively on electricity (not natural gas, propane, or fuel oil) it is usually very affordable.

Purchasing green power through your utility

Many utilities offer a green power option for their customers, typically from renewable sources within your region. Instead of buying RECs from a third party, you can quickly get set up to buy the RECs based on a premium charge per kilowatt-hour that you consume. 

What are RECs?

The market for renewable energy credits (RECs) has exploded in recent years, but RECs are still an abstract entity that can be difficult to define.

For buildings that can’t generate onsite renewable power or purchase it through a regional utility, but still want to promote renewable energy, RECs (sometimes called “green tags” or “tradable renewable certificates”) allow customers to continue to buy the same grid-supplied power, while also buying the environmental attributes of electricity produced by a renewable source. (The actual renewably generated electricity is sold separately to the grid for market price as normal power, while your REC purchase helps deliver extra revenue that helps make renewable energy production financially feasible.) To ensure quality, LEED requires you to purchase RECs certified by Green-e, a third-party program, or an equivalent certification program.

You can buy RECs from specific regions of the country, and even from specific renewable energy projects, or project types (like wind or solar). Buying RECs from a specific source can increase the cost a bit, but also helps bring this intangible commodity down to earth.

Criticisms of RECs

RECs, along with carbon offsets, which are similar, have come under criticism. This is largely due to the perception that they allow a person or a business to go on with business as usual, consuming as much fossil fuel as usual, and then simply write a check to assuage their guilt, without producing tangible environmental benefit.

There is validity to these concerns, which are best countered by conserving energy through high-performance building design and location (earning other EA and SS points in LEED), generating renewable energy onsite if possible, and then buying RECs only as a last step. Focusing on energy conservation first has the side benefit of making the ultimate purchase of RECs more affordable, because you have less consumption to offset.