Data Types & Requirements

Depending on the terms and scope of the contract, there will be various types of data required from your organization. Without all of the required data and assets (meters, sites, etc), energy metrics and carbon calculations will not be complete.

The following assets are essential for onboarding:

Sites are the properties in your portfolio. The types of data for each site include:

Sites are listed under inventory in the Cleartrace dashboard, from which you are able to see each site’s full details. Once data is processing / processed - site-level metrics such as consumption, on-site renewable generation, contracted renewable energy, grid consumption and derivative carbon metrics are presented in the dashboards (GHG, 24/7, Inventory and Contractual Instruments). See “Navigating the Dashboard” for more information on each.

Meters represent the independent data feeds that are, well, meters associated with each site in your inventory, typically associated with a physical meter on-site. By way of example, consumption sites will have one, or more, load meters which measure the total consumption of a site. Some sites may have on-site renewable generation as well (e.g. solar panels on a roof) that provide energy for the site, as measured by one, or more, generation meters. The types of data associated with each meter include:

Following are the data types and data pathways we support:

Energy consumption is the quantity of energy consumed by the site(s) over a specific period of time from any source (ranging from hourly interval data to monthly utility bills). Utility bills are one of the quickest ways to get consumption data onboarded, however this sort of data would limit available reporting and metrics to annual GHG reporting.  Interval data is required for 24/7 reporting, and is also used for annual GHG reporting if utility bill data is not provided.

Energy generated on site (e.g. solar panels on a roof) that is the first available energy for site consumption. Energy generated on-site in excess of the site’s load at any period of time would be dispatched to the local grid or stored on-site for future use.

Contracted Energy is the energy generated from an off-site renewable source and by way of bilateral contract, scheduled for delivery to the consuming site(s). For example, a Customer has an agreement with a Supplier’s solar generation facility to dispatch 200MWh of energy to a Customer’s site(s) over the course of a year.

RECs are the market-standard instrument in North America by which a company purchases green attributes of renewable energy. In the case of a “bundled REC”; the buyer is purchasing both the physical energy as well as the REC.  If “unbundled”, the buyer is purchasing only the REC.  In either case, the holder of the REC can demonstrate that their energy consumption was wholly, or partially, decarbonized.

Other EACs supported include, but are not limited to: International RECs (I-RECs), Guarantees of Origin (GOs), Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin (REGOs), and Tradable Instruments for Global Renewables (TIGRs).