SWITCHING TO GREEN

The document outlines three primary methods for companies to obtain green power: retail green power programs, renewable energy certificates (RECs), and on-site generation. It provides a business case for the transition, focusing on GHG reduction, stakeholder relations, and cost stability. The guide also details procurement strategies to minimize premiums, such as energy efficiency upgrades and demand aggregation, and explains the methodology for accounting for carbon benefits in corporate GHG inventories using e-GRID emission factors.

• The U.S. electricity market is divided into regulated and deregulated sectors, which dictates a company's procurement options. In regulated markets, companies typically use utility-sponsored "green pricing" programs, while those in deregulated markets can choose between utilities or competitive power marketers.
• There are three main delivery options for green power: retail programs, Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), and on-site generation. Retail programs are simple but offer less geographic flexibility; RECs provide high flexibility and lower costs by decoupling environmental attributes from the physical electricity; on-site generation (such as solar PV) offers reliability and visibility but requires high up-front capital.
• Companies can reduce the cost premium of green power through several strategies: implementing energy efficiency upgrades to lower overall consumption, aggregating demand across multiple facilities to achieve volume discounts, or sourcing RECs nationally to find the least expensive resources.
• The "solar services" model allows companies to adopt on-site solar PV without high initial costs by having a third-party financier design, install, and own the equipment, while the company signs a fixed-price power purchase agreement (PPA).
• To account for greenhouse gas (GHG) benefits, companies multiply the amount of green power or RECs purchased by the e-GRID emission factor of the subregion where the renewable energy was generated, reporting the result as a negative line item in their GHG inventory.
• Green power is defined as energy from resources with relatively low impacts on human and ecosystem health, including solar, wind, biomass, landfill gas, geothermal, and certain certified hydropower. Nuclear energy is excluded because it is not renewable.

APA

DEL PINO, S. P. (2006). SWITCHING TO GREEN. World Resources Institute. https://pdf.wri.org/switching_to_green.pdf

Chicago

DEL PINO, SAMANTHA PUTT. SWITCHING TO GREEN. World Resources Institute, 2006. https://pdf.wri.org/switching_to_green.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=DEL PINO |first1=SAMANTHA PUTT |title=SWITCHING TO GREEN |publisher=World Resources Institute |date=October 2006 |url=https://pdf.wri.org/switching_to_green.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{delpino2006switching, author = {DEL PINO, SAMANTHA PUTT}, title = {{SWITCHING TO GREEN}}, institution = {World Resources Institute}, year = {2006}, month = oct, url = {https://pdf.wri.org/switching_to_green.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }