IDEA Carbon Count

Introducing the IDEA Carbon Count

Beginning in 2023, IDEA undertook a new initiative to assess carbon emissions by member district energy systems and better understand the methods member systems are using to decarbonize. 

This voluntary program is intended to support IDEA education and advocacy efforts and should become a valuable tool for members to share best practices and demonstrate their success at reducing carbon emissions on behalf of their customers and connected buildings.

IDEA Carbon Count was conceived as a partner to the annual District Energy Space competition. DE Space, which launched in 1990, is an annual reporting process by which member systems submit data on added buildings and square footage during the given year. DE Space has become a powerful tool for demonstrating industry growth and with time IDEA hopes Carbon Count will become equally valuable.

Carbon Count-Year 2

Last year, IDEA launched the first ever Carbon Count initiative, a voluntary emissions data submission program intended to support IDEA education and advocacy efforts while also serving as a valuable tool for members to demonstrate their success at reducing carbon emissions on behalf of their customers and connected buildings.

We are pleased to continue this effort in 2024. If your system would like to participate, please submit the last calendar year’s emissions data along with a brief description of your decarbonization strategies to Sarah Crawford-Theurkauf by Friday, April 12. Preliminary aggregated results and recognition of participating systems will be presented at IDEA2024, taking place June 17-20, 2024 in Orlando, FL.

We would encourage system operators to provide system information even if it is preliminary / incomplete. If system operators do not have information broken down by energy service, providing information in aggregate is acceptable. The program will not disclose carbon emissions intensity of systems without written consent from the system operators.

If you need additional information about this program, I encourage you to download the slides from our "Carbon Accounting 101" session at CampusEnergy2024, where we discussed the foundations of carbon accounting and critical components of financial-grade energy & sustainability data.

Last year, participating systems helped establish a baseline, both individually and for the industry, and as we add data every year, we look forward to seeing clearer pictures and trends emerge!

2023 IDEACC Submission Form
2023 IDEACC Submission Guidelines

New Webinar: Carbon Accounting 201: Establishing Baselines for District Energy Systems!

Did you catch Carbon Accounting 101, presented by Lalit Agarwal (EnergyCAP) and Sarah Crawford-Theurkauf (IDEA) at CampusEnergy2024 in February? If not, you can watch it here!

The conversation continued on Thursday, March 28th with Carbon Accounting 201: Establishing Baselines for District Energy Systems! Stream it Now!

Reliable carbon emission baseline values are some of the most powerful tools a district energy system can have in decarbonization efforts and conversations with customers and leadership. However, establishing those baselines can be challenging- carbon accounting is an evolving field, there are a number of methodologies in the market, and district energy-specific guidance can be hard to find.
IDEA, in partnership with EnergyCAP, is here to help! In this session, we will cover:
 
How to differentiate between Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions
Gathering the commodity data required for calculation
Understanding and selecting appropriate emissions factors
 
In addition to a short presentation, we hope to reserve a good amount of time for Q&A, so come with your questions.
Finally, we will demonstrate how to leverage the new and improved IDEA Carbon Count to calculate your baselines for you. The Carbon Count process leverages EnergyCAP’s financial-grade carbon accounting system, CarbonHub, to transform submitted system consumption data into verifiable emissions values, and IDEA is pleased to extend that benefit to participating systems.