Keep the rings: a yearly record of your electricity emissions

What Scope 2 emissions reporting measures

Scope 2 emissions reporting covers the emissions from electricity, plus any purchased steam, heat or cooling, that your organization buys and uses. The power plant burns the fuel, but the emissions count in your inventory because you consumed the power. For many Kentucky manufacturers and suppliers, purchased electricity is one of the largest sources in the whole footprint.

We turn your utility bills into a yearly record, the way a tree keeps its rings: one layer per year, readable long after the year ends, as long as someone keeps it. We follow the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance, use EPA eGRID factors and show every number we rely on. The results are non-certified estimates.

Location-based vs. market-based

The Scope 2 Guidance asks for two figures where contractual instruments are available.

• Location-based multiplies your kilowatt-hours by the average emission rate of the grid you draw from. It reflects where you are and what the regional grid burns.
• Market-based reflects what you’ve bought: renewable energy certificates, green tariff products, power purchase agreements or a supplier-specific rate. Without qualifying instruments, it falls back to other factors.

Buying RECs can lower your market-based figure. It doesn’t change your location-based figure. Using less electricity lowers both, and so does making your own on site, as long as you keep the renewable attributes. Our location-based vs. market-based guide walks through examples.

Data collection

We start with an inventory of sites, accounts and meters, and a written decision on your organizational boundary. That decision matters for leased space: if a landlord pays the bill, the electricity may still belong in your inventory, depending on the approach you choose.

Then we build a monthly workbook from bills, and from 15-minute or hourly interval data where your utility provides it. Interval data isn’t required today. But proposals in the GHG Protocol’s ongoing revision include hourly matching for some clean energy claims, so organizations that save interval data now will have the history if they need it.

Emission factors: one choice can nearly double the number

EPA recommends eGRID subregion output emission rates for estimating emissions from electricity use. In the most recent eGRID release (2023 data), the SERC Tennessee Valley (SRTV) subregion, which covers most Kentucky generation, averaged about 898 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour. Kentucky’s in-state power plants, taken alone, averaged about 1,735. Grab the state figure instead of the subregion figure and you nearly double the location-based estimate. We use the subregion your serving utility falls in, which EPA’s Power Profiler identifies, and we name the eGRID edition in the memo.

A second trap: eGRID also publishes non-baseload rates, which EPA describes as suited to estimating emissions avoided by projects such as renewable energy. They aren’t the factor for an inventory. A solar array’s avoided emissions and your Scope 2 reduction are two different numbers.

Renewable claims and instrument quality

The Scope 2 Guidance sets quality criteria for contractual instruments used in market-based figures. In general terms, an instrument should carry the emission attribute, be claimed only once, be retired on your behalf, match the period of your consumption reasonably closely and come from the same market where you use power. We check each instrument you hold and list what’s missing.

Labels change too. TVA has said its Power REC product will no longer carry Green-e Energy certification from January 1, 2027, because its supplying wind facilities exceed Green-e’s age limit for new resources. The certificates still exist; what a customer will accept about them may differ.

The annual inventory memo

You get a memo covering boundary, sources, factors and editions, calculations, exclusions and changes from last year, plus the workbook behind it. It isn’t third-party verified. If a customer or lender requires assurance, the memo is built so an independent verifier can follow it.

Priya Venkataraman leads this work. Answering a customer’s format instead? See Supplier Sustainability Questionnaires. Weighing a green tariff, RECs or on-site solar? Start with the Sustainability Consulting comparison.