OpenEAC Alliance January Update
New Methodologies, a recurring quarterly meeting, and more!
Dear OpenEAC Alliance Members,
If the one thing you thought was missing in this world was a lack of clarity around error metrics for calibrated energy models using TMY-3 weather data, you’re in the right place. It’s been a while since we sent an update, so let’s get to it.
First, I want to recognize the many colleagues whose work at the National Labs and in the Department of Energy and elsewhere is under attack. Our entire industry owes a debt of gratitude to all of the people who have made available the tools and resources that we rely upon every day. We know this is a difficult time for you and your families and we hope that you are able to continue your good work.
If it hasn’t been made obvious in the past couple of weeks, the challenge of decarbonization will face headwinds from the US federal government for the foreseeable future. Some states will continue to push forward standards, but none will have the resources to achieve any semblance of progress toward real emission reductions. That means it will be up to the private sector to step up.
We launched the OpenEAC Alliance nearly a year ago to solve one of the biggest barriers to private sector engagement - a lack of standards for decarbonization accounting. While attributional carbon accounting (e.g., Scope 1,2,3, where emissions are tallied up) remains the primary focus of global organizations, decarbonization accounting (where emission reductions are tallied up) sit outside of formal GHG guidelines.
Our goal with the OpenEAC Alliance is to bring the same level of rigor to decarbonization accounting that has been asked of carbon accounting. It’s not enough simply to provide an annual savings number, and it’s not okay to ignore the fact that the carbon intensity of the grid changes from hour to hour, day to day, and month to month. It’s especially problematic when savings claims sit inside a black box. These types of shortcuts only serve to cast doubt on the entire industry.
With the OpenEAC Alliance, our goal is to promote transparency, auditability, and accountability for carbon reduction claims. If evidence of decarbonization is taken seriously - if we make it revenue-grade - more organizations will be able to commit to funding and financing decarbonization programs. As the federal government abdicates its role in protecting our future, the private sector must be ready to step forward into the void.
How the OpenEAC Alliance Works
The role of the OpenEAC Alliance is to provide a review of methodologies that deviate from existing industry standards. This is most likely to happen when moving from an industry standard that is based on an annual savings number to a standard that is reporting on an hourly basis. Similarly, industry standards often rely on outdated carbon equivalencies (using an annual number or a model such as AVERT), which means that the translation to carbon impact needs to be updated to be more accurate.
When a methodology is submitted to the OpenEAC Alliance for review, volunteer members of the community comment on the draft proposal and sharpen it so that it can be generalizable (the fewer bespoke methodologies the better) and so that it can be referenced by an M&V plan that gets submitted with an EAC claim. The M&V plan will contain all of the implementation details required to calculate savings as well as to prove the validity of the claim (such as proof of measure installation). M&V plans are contracts between parties, and thus outside the scope of the OpenEAC Alliance, but they should explain how a particular approved methodology was implemented.
A provisional methodology may be submitted to the OpenEAC Alliance, and EACs may be created on the basis of a provisional methodology. A methodology is approved when three or more members of the OpenEAC Alliance (not including the methodology sponsor) formally sign an approval. These signatures are public and sit in the GitHub repository along with the methodology specification itself and serve as a permanent record.
Progress to Date
As of today, four methodologies have been submitted for review. These include:
A core decarbonization accounting methodology submitted by WattCarbon that covers the basics of hourly decarbonization accounting.
A self-consumed solar methodology submitted by Peer Carbon that quantifies the carbon emission reductions associated with solar production that is consumed by a building instead of being fed back into the grid.
A hybrid metered/modeled methodology used for electrification projects developed by WattCarbon and Elephant Energy.
A hybrid model used for quantifying lighting savings developed by C3 and Redaptive.
The Peer Carbon methodology has been approved. The others are now in the final stages of review and will be opened up for approval by the OpenEAC Alliance members at the next meeting.
Who has been Driving this Effort
Getting something like the OpenEAC Alliance off the ground is a tremendously difficult undertaking. Members of the WattCarbon team (Steve, Matt, and George), the Peer Carbon team (Molly, Elaine, Pierre), methodology reviewers (Eliot, Paul, Nick, Sebnem, Chris), and all of the members of the steering committee worked tirelessly to create the governance infrastructure and put together the first set of methodologies for review. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.
Unfortunately, we at the WattCarbon side had to say goodbye to George and Matt, so Steve and I (McGee) will be leading the efforts here on a going forward basis. We’re grateful that Peer Carbon has been side-by-side with us during this initial phase and look forward to continuing our collaboration. As we start to expand the scope of methodologies, we look forward to welcoming new collaborators from across the industry (if you’ve read this far and are interested, please let us know!).
Up Next
We’re moving to a quarterly meeting cycle starting on February 20th. Everyone receiving this email will also get an invitation to a recurring quarterly meeting. We’d love to see you there. We’ll be looking for approvers for the next set of methodologies and expect to see more methodologies submitted over the next few months.
The end goal remains the same. We want to empower private organizations to take the lead to develop and deploy decarbonization programs across the built environment. 40% of emissions on the planet are related to energy use in buildings. If we don’t solve the challenge of how to keep our homes comfortable, our businesses operational, and our transportation reliable without depending on fossil fuels, none of the rest of the measures we take to mitigate the effects of climate change will matter. As galling as the past few weeks have been, it only reinforces the fact that change will have to come from the grassroots. It will take thousands of decarbonization initiatives across the world to move the needle on CO2 emissions. If we can give the changemakers the tools they need to be effective, there’s a chance that we can deliver the impact the world needs.