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308 results
Using solar PV to achieve decarbonisation goals without upfront capital
Mediclinic implemented solar PV across 29 hospital sites, using a PPA model for 10 sites, including Durbanville Hospital, to avoid upfront costs. The Durbanville installation, commissioned in November 2021, consists of a 704.6 kW (DC) system that produces approximately 1.17 GWh of green electricity annually, offsetting about 1,076 tons of carbon emissions. The 25-year take-or-pay PPA provided immediate savings, with initial electricity prices approximately 60% lower than municipal rates. The document highlights the benefits of PPAs for operational de-risking and financial hedging against rising grid costs, while recommending clear maintenance responsibilities and sector-specific provider experience for similar projects.
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Document type: Case study
Unlocking the potential of wheeling in the Western Cape
The Western Cape has a potential wheeling market of up to 1,600 MW of new renewable energy, representing an investment opportunity of up to R25.6bn. While wheeling allows customers to purchase power from independent power producers (IPPs) via existing grids, its uptake is hindered by limited municipal capacity and the requirement that municipalities be in good financial standing with Eskom. To address these barriers, Eskom is piloting 'virtual wheeling', expected to launch in early 2025, which allows municipal customers to access energy from Eskom-connected IPPs without waiting for municipal readiness. Current wheeling in the province is limited to a few local municipalities, including the City of Cape Town, George, and Swartland. The document highlights that wheeling can provide significant cost savings and price stability for businesses through bilateral power purchase agreements (PPAs), though long-term financial models should account for potential future decreases in daytime energy tariffs.
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Document type: Briefing
Leveraging short-term power purchase agreements for local energy resilience
The document demonstrates that short-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) allow municipalities to integrate renewable energy quickly and cost-effectively without the rigid financial commitments of long-term contracts.
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Document type: Case study
MAPPING A PATHWAY TO LOW-CARBON CAMPUSES
The document outlines a framework for universities to transition to low-carbon campuses by focusing on three pillars: people, policy, and plan. It emphasizes assembling multidisciplinary teams, aligning investment policies with life cycle cost analysis, and adopting an iterative planning process. Key strategies include implementing portfolio-wide energy efficiency measures before building-specific deep retrofits, leveraging 'incremental costs' during planned maintenance, and reducing peak loads to downsize central plant equipment. The guide advocates for moving beyond 'business-as-usual' practices to maximize the economic and environmental impact of carbon-reduction initiatives.
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Document type: Guide
Renewable Energy Emissions Score V1.0 Public Consultation Results
The public consultation for the Renewable Energy (RE) Emissions Score V1.0 revealed that while stakeholders generally view the tool as a positive addition to GHG reporting—particularly for the cryptocurrency sector—there are significant concerns regarding the 'procurement factor' and the use of Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE). Respondents highlighted that a score of 100 may not represent true zero net emissions due to embedded emissions in hardware and the limitations of marginal emissions factors in aligning with global net-zero targets.
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Document type: Report
Sustainable Zero Net Energy – Identifying the Essentials for Solutions
The document examines the transition toward zero net energy (ZNE) buildings and distributed energy resources (DERs), highlighting the misalignment between traditional utility business models and the bidirectional power flows of ZNE designs. It argues that current volumetric rate structures and net energy metering (NEM) can create economic inefficiencies and equity issues. To resolve this, the authors propose a framework involving more rigorous measurement of DER impacts, the use of price signals to align customer incentives with grid value, and the evolution of utility models toward either incentive-based regulation or a 'network utility' approach. The paper emphasizes the need for metrics that account for short-term grid interaction rather than just annual energy balances.
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Document type: Research paper
CASE STUDY: SOUTH DEEP MINE
Gold Fields implemented a 40 MW solar PV project at its South Deep Gold Mine in South Africa to mitigate rising electricity costs from the utility Eskom and reduce its carbon footprint. Developed with assistance from the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) and DNV GL, the project utilizes a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with an independent power producer. The installation is expected to offset 15–20 percent of the mine's energy consumption and achieve a 114 percent lifetime benefit-to-cost ratio.
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Document type: Case study
A Roadmap to the Next Level of Performance Phase One Report Next Generation Energy Management
The report identifies nine key drivers—including energy cost savings, stakeholder demand, and smart building technology—that enable corporations to move beyond incremental sustainability gains toward higher energy performance and net-zero buildings.
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Document type: Report
Best Practices for Electrifying Rural Health Care Facilities with Decentralised Renewables
The report argues that decentralised renewable energy (DRE) is the most effective solution for electrifying rural health facilities, particularly during health crises like COVID-19. It proposes a delivery model combining 'smart grants' for upfront capital expenditures (CAPEX) with market-based compensation mechanisms, such as long-term Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), to ensure both rapid deployment and long-term financial and technical sustainability. Through 16 case studies across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, the document demonstrates how DRE can improve maternal and child health outcomes, enable the storage of vaccines, and foster socio-economic development by integrating health facilities as central nodes for wider community electrification.
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Document type: Report
Decentralised Renewable Energy Solutions for Inclusive and Sustainable Mining
The report argues that integrating DRE infrastructure to power both mines and local communities—termed 'inclusive mining'—can reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower operational costs, and catalyse rural socio-economic development. It identifies key barriers such as complex energy regulations, limited local technical skills, and the high upfront capital costs of renewable systems. Through four case studies in Australia, Madagascar, and Mali, the document demonstrates various models for community electrification, including shared microgrids, indirect feeding into local grids, and the repurposing of end-of-life mines. The authors recommend establishing inclusive governance structures, investing in productive use of renewable energy (PURE) to stimulate demand, and embedding a gender lens to ensure equitable benefit sharing.
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Document type: Report
24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact GUIDEBOOK
The 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact, coordinated by Sustainable Energy for All on behalf of UN-Energy, promotes a global effort to ensure every kilowatt-hour of electricity consumption is met with carbon-free sources every hour of every day. The guidebook outlines five core principles: time-matched procurement, local procurement, technology-inclusivity, enabling new generation, and maximizing system impact. It details technical enablers such as Granular Certificates (GCs) for hourly tracking, smart metering, and 24/7 CFE Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs). The document also highlights the role of green hydrogen as a storage solution and provides implementation roadmaps for energy buyers, governments, and suppliers, while emphasizing equity considerations for the Global South.
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Document type: Guide
Actions Large Energy Buyers Can Take to Transform and Decarbonize the Grid: Procurement Practices for Achieving 100% Carbon Free Electricity
The document argues that large energy buyers must move beyond basic renewable energy procurement to adopt 'transformative procurement practices' to achieve a zero-carbon grid by 2050. It identifies six key approaches: matching clean energy purchases with the timing of use, incorporating demand flexibility, purchasing dispatchable clean electricity, adopting enabling technologies like energy storage, maximizing emissions reductions, and ensuring an equitable transition.
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Document type: Briefing
Strengthening Adoption of Electricity Markets to Enable the Clean Energy Transition in Indian States
The paper examines the role of electricity markets in India's clean energy transition, noting that while day-ahead markets have existed since 2008, newer segments like real-time and green day-ahead markets are still nascent. It identifies several subnational barriers to market participation, including complex regulations, long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs), and a lack of technical capacity for resource planning. The author argues that electricity markets can facilitate the transition to renewable energy by leveraging lower marginal costs and enhancing grid flexibility to reduce curtailment of variable renewables.
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Document type: Research paper
Purchasing Power
The document identifies high transaction costs, the time required for market learning, and fragmented demand as primary barriers to solar PV adoption for commercial and government consumers. It proposes collaborative purchasing as a solution to aggregate demand and lower installation costs. The guide offers a structured 12-step process, informed by research and case studies of early regional collaborations, to help participants achieve competitive pricing and improved vendor performance.
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Document type: Guide
ACCC: Renewables Accelerator Procurement Guidance: Summary of Methods and Data
The document outlines the technical framework and curation methodology for the American Cities Climate Challenge: Renewables Accelerator website, a collaborative resource by the World Resources Institute and Rocky Mountain Institute designed to support city sustainability staff in the procurement of renewable energy.
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Document type: Briefing
Renewable Energy Procurement Perceptions among Commercial and Industrial Consumers: Current Practices and Future Possibilities
The research examines renewable energy (RE) procurement among 101 corporate and 185 SME consumers across five Indian states. It finds a dominant preference for on-site solutions, with large corporations favoring open access off-site projects due to higher capital and energy needs. Green Tariffs (GTs) face low awareness—up to 82% of corporate consumers and 94% of SMEs are unaware of them—and poor acceptability, as 62% of corporate and 55% of SME consumers are unwilling to pay a premium for GTs. The paper recommends that state energy departments restructure GT models with lower premiums and fiscal incentives, while utilities should act as information disseminators to prevent C&I consumers from migrating from the grid.
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Document type: Research paper
Behind the Meter Solar PV
The document outlines how to assess the cost-competitiveness of behind-the-meter solar PV, noting that parity is achieved when the average cost of energy equals or is less than the retail electricity price. It highlights a common third-party ownership model in the United States that removes upfront costs for consumers and provides a glossary of key energy finance and planning terms.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Utility-Scale Renewable Energy
The document outlines the criteria for determining when utility-scale renewable energy is cost-competitive compared to traditional power sources, emphasizing the importance of the perspective used for comparison. It defines cost parity from three viewpoints: for end-use consumers via Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), against other technologies filling the same capacity need based on average cost of energy or risk, and against the current wholesale market generation mix based on average wholesale prices during production times.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Understanding Renewable Energy Cost Parity
The document defines 'cost parity' as the cost-competitiveness between renewable energy and traditional electricity supply. It outlines specific criteria for determining competitiveness based on the deployment model: behind-the-meter generation is competitive when its average cost equals or is less than the retail price (plus backup savings in developing economies); Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) are competitive when the price is lower than or equal to the retail price; and wholesale generation is competitive in the long-run when its average cost equals average wholesale costs.
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Document type: Fact sheet
Using Renewables for Electric Vehicle Demand: A Review of Utility Program Designs and Implementation Strategies
The document examines various US utility approaches to matching EV loads with renewable energy, noting that time-based charging and financial incentives enhance grid benefits and participation. It highlights the potential for expanding these programs from residential users to corporations and cities, while noting that managed charging for fleets is effective for matching energy availability, whereas network charging faces greater implementation challenges in timing alignment.
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Document type: Research paper