Renewable Energy Certificates track renewable electricity generation across North American markets. Each REC represents one megawatt-hour of renewable energy generation from qualifying facilities. The certificate unbundles energy attributes from physical electricity for market-based claims because the grid mixes all power sources physically. For carbon accounting, valid RECs can provide Scope 2 emissions reductions under the GHG Protocol's market-based method.
Residual mix represents the attribute profile (the renewable status of procured energy) left after certificate retirements remove tracked generation from regional pools. Calculated annually by organizations like AIB (European Attribute Mix), DESNZ (United Kingdom's Residual Mix Data), Green-e (North American residual mix methodologies), these organisations use the residual mix to, in-effect, assign market-based emissions factors to those who consume electricity, yet who do not retire certificates.
Residual Mix is not to be confused with the grid-average emissions factors used in location-based reporting. Read more in our residual mix guide here.
Scope 2 emissions quantify indirect greenhouse gases from energy procurement (purchasing). These figures are disclosed by reporting organisations. Unless following a different standard, disclosure practices obey the GHG Protocol Corporate Standard and Scope 2 Guidance. Companies are required to calculate and report two separate figures: location-based emissions using grid average factors, alongside market-based emissions reflecting an emissions figure calculated by applying the emissions factor of contractual instruments (required to avoid using the emissions factor from the residual mix). Final market figures are typically disclosed after valid use of contractual instruments like EACs or PPAs, deemed valid if they meet the quality criteria established by the GHG protocol.
Scope 3 Category 15 includes indirect emissions from a company’s investments (known as 'financed emissions'), included via equity ownership, project financing, or debt issuance. C15 falls under the Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Scope 3 standard, and is the final category within Scope 3. As is the nature of Scope 3 (indirect emissions beyond the reporting entity, located within their value chain), C15 is concerned only with emissions that are not already included in the Scope 1 (direct) or Scope 2 (purchased energy) inventories of the investor company. S3 C15, instead refers to the indirect, proportional Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions of those portfolio companies, that become attributable to the investor via this category. Within the context of EACs (market-based Scope 2 instruments); if a portfolio company uses and retires EACs and reflects them in its market-based reporting, its reported Scope 2 emissions fall, and because Category 15 uses those reported emissions data to calculate financed emissions, effective EAC cancellaitons at the portfolio company level can indirectly reduce the financed emissions attributed to the investor in Category 15. EACs themselves are not a direct Category 15 instrument but influence the input data used in the Category 15 calculation due to their core functionality within market-based calculations.
Structured energy products are custom-designed financial or physical contracts that go beyond standard supply agreements. Think Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs or vPPAs) or tailored pricing structures built around a buyer's specific consumption profile, risk appetite, and price expectations.
These products often span years or even decades, giving energy-intensive industries and corporate buyers long-term price certainty while supporting their Scope 2 reporting under the GHG Protocol. They're particularly common across European and North American markets where companies need to lock in renewable supply at predictable costs.
Structured products work hand-in-hand with Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) - the GOs, RECs, or I-RECs that provide the actual proof of renewable consumption for reporting purposes. The structured product secures the power or hedge, while the certificates handle the compliance side for renewable claims. Buyers still need to procure and cancel certificates delivered within structured products in the relevant registry or Soldera virtual accounts to make valid renewable energy claims.
For companies operating across multiple markets, managing these arrangements alongside certificate procurement across different registries gets complex fast. That's where unified certificate management platforms come in to ensure that audit trails are kept clean and all national rule deviations are automatically followed.
Temporal Energy Attribute Certificates (T-EACs) are energy certificates with hourly or sub-hourly timestamps that show exactly when carbon-free electricity was produced. For compliance teams, T-EACs give you timestamped proof that renewable supply actually matched demand hour by hour. They're issued by certain registries (with pilots and rollouts increasing as their popularity increases), operating at a finer granularity than but building on the same idea as RECs in North America, Guarantees of Origin in Europe, and REGOs in the UK. Instead of proving renewable energy was generated somewhere during the year, T-EACs prove it was generated in the same hour (or less) that the exact period in time it was consumed.
At time of writing: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol is currently reviewing whether to formally recognise these granular instruments in Scope 2 reporting, though procurement is already happening regardless. The tricky part is that each country runs its own registry with its own data formats, so tracking and cancelling certificates across borders gets incredibly messy very quickly. Soldera connects to multiple registries through a single platform, cutting through most of that friction, therefore being well positioned to handle T-EAC workflows.
Unbundled procurement of EACs refers to the procurement of energy and EACs in separate transactions, usually with the intend to cancel EACs for market-based Scope 2 disclosure. Certain entities, like traders, procure EACs with the intention of selling them rather than cancelling them, which can still understood as an unbundled purchase. Only the party that ultimately cancels an EAC can make the renewable consumption claim.
Vintage, the timestamp of electricity production, refers to the generation date or time period when the renewable energy, tracked by an EAC, was produced. It's used by reporting frameworks and compliance schemes to impose vintage matching rules that determine which certificates are eligible for use. For example, "2025 Vintage" EACs carry the renewable attributes of electricity generated in 2025. As generation metadata is carried by each certificate, expiry timelines are applied from the point of generation onwards. After that period, the certificate's vintage is too old for usage and is technically worthless, which is also why older vintage EACs fetch lower prices as they approach expiry. Certain schemes may disallow certificates before the expiry date, even if they remain technically valid in a registry. For instance, Green-e® requires certificates to be no more than 21 months old relative to the reporting period, and RE100 recommends this as a "reasonable practice". This prevents companies from using old certificates to claim renewable energy use, ensuring claims reflect contemporary generation. Standard-driven vintage requirements like these is also what creates a functional expiry for I-RECs, despite their perpetual registry validity.
