Technology Trending: REC transactions and energy consumption matching

EDF leads a proof-of-concept on automating renewable energy transactions and Eurelectric’s study on the benefits of matching energy consumption with clean energy on a (near) real-time basis are on the week’s technology radar.

Automating renewable energy certificate transactions – EDF demonstrates proof-of-concept

EDF, working together with renewable energy certificate (REC) solution provider REDEX and Web3 specialist Rekursive Labs, has developed a proof-of-concept that has the potential to revolutionise the REC market by streamlining its efficiency, transparency and verification.

The solution, which utilises Hedera’s open-source distributed ledger technology platform, enables end consumers to retire small quantities of RECs in real time, indicative that they care about how the power they consume is being produced.

Specifically, the proof-of-concept used EDF’s MASERA Microgrid demonstrator in Singapore to demonstrate the automatic redemption of tokenised RECs at electric vehicle charging stations.

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The initiative involved collecting data from multiple sources, including solar panels, generators and energy storage systems, to calculate the rate of green energy production into the grid. This data was then matched in near-real time with the energy consumed by electric vehicle chargers to ensure that the certified green energy usage perfectly matched the actual consumption at the charging stations, down to the watt-hour.

In addition, EDF provided the possibility for the customer to adjust the amount of energy to be certified for each individual charging session.

Edouard Lavillonniere, Managing Director at EDF Lab Asia Pacific said: “Our commitment to sustainability aligns perfectly with the vision of a greener future enabled by distributed ledger technology. We are shaping a future where renewable energy adoption is streamlined, transparent and accessible to all.”

As a concept RECs are simple as an instrument to trace power consumption to renewable energy sources and as such offer the most convenient and practical way for companies to achieve Scope 2 neutrality. This is driving the number of RECs issued and retired to more than double year on year in a market estimated at $19 billion globally.

EDF and its partners now intend to further refine the solution, develop new use cases and offer automated REC services to other producers and consumers of renewable energy globally.

Matching energy consumption to accelerate decarbonisation

The concept of matching energy consumption with clean energy on a real time or at least near real time basis is discussed in a new study from Eurelectric and power purchase agreement (PPA) specialist Pexapark, which describes it as “one of the most impactful ways for corporates to accelerate the energy systems’ decarbonisation”.

Such 24/7 hourly matching yields multiple benefits from increasing corporate sustainability claims’ transparency, thanks to more granular carbon accounting, to incentivising investments in renewables and storage technologies, to decarbonising and digitalising the power grid, states the study.

Large energy consumers typically report their carbon emissions based on their annual energy consumption. However, the respective RECs, often from projects located far from the consumption, do not account for the actual energy source physically consumed at a specific time and may instead come from a grid mix that includes fossil fuel-generated electricity.

With 24/7 hourly matching, a given volume of electricity demand is matched with an equivalent volume of carbon-free energy generated and injected on the same grid and at the same time.

Marianne Karu, Business and Communication Director at Eurelectric, describes 24/7 as the next level in corporates’ commitments to decarbonisation.

“Most importantly, it is a powerful driver of innovation and investments into clean, renewable and storage technologies as well as an opportunity to better hedge consumers wishing to reduce their exposure to volatile spot energy markets.”

The study was undertaken to investigate the hedging implications on a corporate’s energy sourcing strategy with a 24/7 PPA compared with a conventional PPA, with its closer matching of supply and demand.

Looking at two different case studies in Germany and Finland with combinations of technologies, Eurelectric and Pexapark found that higher hourly matching provides greater absolute hedging benefits. In Finland particularly, an electricity consumer using 10MW of baseload power in 2022 could have saved over €14 million with a 90% hourly matched PPA.

The study also found that during periods of high prices, the benefits of hedging are much higher than hedging costs and that hybrid wind and solar portfolios are able to achieve higher levels of hourly matching – up to 75% – while maintaining a consistent hedging benefit.

Thus the existing clean and renewable technologies are already enough for corporates to embark on the 24/7 PPA journey.