Low-carbon Electricity Procurement

The material included in this report originally was developed as a set of technical briefing papers to accompany a series of webcasts conducted as part of EPRI’s 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Buyers Forum collaborative supplemental project. These webcasts explored key issues associated with the procurement of hourly-matched carbon-free energy (CFE) by the federal government and large commercial and industrial (C&I) companies. This technical update summarizes information developed for this project on three key topics related to the potential deployment of CFE on a 24-hour, seven day per week basis (24/7 CFE): 1) A review of existing and advanced future carbon-free power generation technologies and their expected cost and performance; 2) Energy supply agreements and electric utility tariff designs that may facilitate deployment of 24/7 CFE; and 3) Data tracking and reporting associated with the purchase and use of 24/7 CFE products.

This EPRI white paper describes the evolution and growing interest of large electricity customers, electric companies, and others in procuring and supplying “carbon-free” energy 24 hours a day, seven days per week (24/7 CFE), and the opportunities and challenges facing electric companies considering developing products and services to meet this emerging need. Further, it explores the potential role of 24/7 CFE in future electric company and electric customer decarbonization activities, the current market status of 24/7 CFE products, services and suppliers, and provides information about existing commercial activities and recent 24/7 CFE agreements. This paper also addresses important related issues, including GHG emissions accounting related to procurement of 24/7 CFE, and the growing and controversial practice of procuring renewable energy (RE) and renewable energy credits (RECs) to achieve corporate carbon emission reduction goals. Development of this paper was supported by EPRI’s Technology Innovation (TI) program.