During the last Alliance meeting in September, we outlined the three key work streams to define critical operating and governance questions for the Open EAC Alliance: Workstream 1: Principles and Purpose, Workstream 2: Method Certification and Versioning, and Workstream 3: Method Content. Each workstream within the OpenEAC Alliance has been actively working on the scope and boundaries of each.
If these are interesting and you would like to join a workstream, please send an email to matt@wattcarbon.com
Workstream 1: Principles and Purpose
This workstream defines the guiding principles and overarching mission of the OpenEAC Alliance, which includes building a governance structure that enables the decarbonization of energy systems through transparent, open-source methodologies to quantify the impact of distributed energy resources (DERs). Additionally, Workstream 1 works to establish market standards that fully recognize the potential of distributed energy resources in decarbonizing energy systems and ensure the trustworthiness and traceability of emissions reduction and energy attribute certificates (EACs) claims.
Key Questions:
What is the mission of the OpenEAC Alliance?
What are the guiding principles?
How should the Steering Committee prioritize its work and set roles for members?
How does the OpenEAC Alliance support all stakeholders, including registries?
Progress:
Workstream 1 focused on defining a mission statement that set several fundamental principles for the Alliance. The mission centers on creating open-source, transparent methodologies that recognize the impact of distributed energy resources in decarbonizing energy systems. The Alliance's guiding principles include transparency, scientific rigor, inclusiveness, and accountability. The Steering Committee maintains this rigor and provides strategic leadership, ensuring processes are transparent and scientifically sound. Additionally, the OpenEAC Alliance serves stakeholders by supporting registries through standardized methodologies that measure and verify the impact of DERs, helping foster trust and market credibility.
Workstream 2: Method Certification and Versioning
This workstream is responsible for developing the certification process for methodologies used within the Alliance. It ensures that methodologies are rigorously reviewed, approved, and continuously updated to stay aligned with market and technological needs. It also manages how methodologies evolve over time through structured versioning, ensuring transparency and adaptability.
Key Questions:
How do we prioritize method certification?
How should OpenEAC members represent themselves or their companies?
What is the certification process, and how does it extend beyond initial certification?
How do we handle versioning of methods, and what standards should we set for version control?
Progress:
The workstream focused on versioning, anticipating the need to evolve a method based on new technologies, markets, and registry requirements. The methods undergo continuous monitoring post-certification, and a new method version will follow a defined structure, with major versions indicating significant changes and minor versions representing incremental updates.
Workstream 3: Method Content
This workstream focuses on the technical aspects of how methods are developed and applied, particularly for minting energy attribute certificates (EACs). It creates the guidelines for data validation, energy production verification, and registry integration. The goal is to ensure that methods are globally applicable while allowing for regional adjustments to meet specific needs.
Key Questions:
What should a method include to mint an EAC?
How should versioning impact the content of a method?
Should we continue using GitHub for content management?
How should methods handle specific geographic needs and global applicability?
Progress:
A method's content must include detailed data validation procedures, traceability, authenticity, and interaction guidelines with registries. Methods are considered to be modular and can define data intake requirements, impact, carbon intensity, or registry governance. Together, they will encapsulate a measurement and verification plan to control the credit governance and define the responsibilities of the parties transacting the credit. Any impact method will need to determine the duration (e.g., continuous, one-time, yearly), the scale of measurement (e.g., whole-building, retrofit isolation, device), and the type of analysis (e.g., counterfactual or performance measurement). GitHub will continue to manage content to ensure its practical use through further education. Finally, methods will be globally applicable with provisions for regional localization, ensuring they remain flexible without compromising integrity.