By Leigh Yeatts

As expanded wholesale electricity markets develop across the western United States, the creation of a centralized West-wide greenhouse gas reporting framework has become essential, along with robust data metrics to support it. The West now has an important opportunity for new markets to provide cohesive, granular, and actionable data that customers need to meet their clean energy goals. To clarify the data metrics that energy customers need to drive further decarbonization and identify opportunities for emerging day-ahead markets in the West to incorporate them, the Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA) has published Customer Data Needs for Greenhouse Gas Reporting in the U.S. West.

The new CEBA publication outlines three key metrics customers need for accounting and reporting: average emissions, marginal emissions, and the residual grid mix. As states set clean energy targets and disclosure requirements for customers increase, having access to this data would enable customers to drive further decarbonization and more accurately substantiate claims.

Access to this data would help customers:

• Report their progress on voluntary carbon reduction goals,
• Understand where to target procurement decisions,
• Allow smarter applications of demand-side technologies to help prevent dispatch of dirty power resources or curtailment of clean resources,
• Shift electricity consumption in time and/or space to reduce emissions, and
• Understand what claims other customers are making.

CEBA also provides examples of additional procurement developments that require more granular data types, including clean energy matching to load and procuring clean energy in the most carbon-intensive places.   

CEBA’s publication complements recommendations developed by Gridworks, Western Resource Advocates (WRA), and CEBA for minimum greenhouse gas reporting metrics for day-ahead markets across the West, to support the needs of key stakeholders. While the groups’ recommendations outline first steps toward regional emissions tracking, electricity markets in the West can further improve data transparency by increasing the reporting frequency, granularity, and completeness of information available to customers.

To support the creation of a centralized West-wide greenhouse gas reporting framework with robust data metrics, CEBA recommends:

• The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP) should include the minimum metrics recommended by CEBA, WRA, and Gridworks for the emerging CAISO and SPP day-ahead markets.
  
• CAISO, SPP, states, and the Western Renewable Energy Generation Information System (WREGIS) should consult customers on use cases and methodologies for calculating average, marginal, and residual mix metrics to meet the needs of evolving corporate procurement strategies that may require more granular data.
  

If widely adopted, these recommendations would cohesively address the needs of Western day-ahead energy market participants, state regulatory agencies, and clean energy buyers. For more information on customer data needs and the Initiative, please contact Leigh Yeatts.