Trace purchased renewable electricity evidence

Keep the consumption record, purchased attributes and accepted quantity connected. This guide helps procurement, finance and reporting teams assemble the evidence and reconcile quantities before releasing a claim.

It covers evidence organisation and allocation, without determining instrument eligibility, legal title, contractual enforceability, scheme compliance or a suitable emission factor.

Build a chain of references

Identify the entity, sites, reporting period and checked consumption total. Keep the proposed claim limited to the scope supported.

For market-based accounting, consult the 2015 GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance, Table 7.1 and section 7.5: emission-rate attributes, exclusivity, tracking, retirement, timing, markets, supplier factors, direct purchasing and residual mix. This record is not an eligibility checklist.

1. Consumption: entity, sites, period, MWh and bill references.

2. Purchase: supplier, agreement reference and purchased MWh.

3. Instrument: scheme or registry, identifiers, generation period and market.

4. Entitlement: beneficiary, attribute rights and any party acting for it. Resolve group-company or landlord name mismatches.

5. Retirement: system or supplier record, beneficiary, quantity, date and reference.

6. Allocation: accepted batch reference, site and MWh used.

7. Review: method, unresolved questions and supported wording.

For supplier-led retirement, obtain evidence of your own entitlement and quantity. A supplier-wide portfolio statement may not establish your allocation.

Keep confidential contracts in an authorised evidence location. Use references in the review record rather than publishing the contracts.

A fictional allocation with incomplete retirement evidence

Two fictional sites consumed 120 MWh: Site A used 80 MWh and Site B used 40 MWh. Procurement purchased instruments representing 90 MWh.

Reviewed retirement evidence covers 70 MWh for the correct beneficiary; 20 MWh is still awaiting the required retirement evidence.

Assume all other criteria, including timing and markets, are met for the fictional 70 MWh.

Allocate 40 MWh of the reviewed batch to A and 30 MWh to B. That leaves 40 MWh at A and 10 MWh at B without accepted supporting attributes: 50 MWh in total.

The pending 20 MWh is part of that 50 MWh, not an additional amount. The other 30 MWh is the difference between 120 MWh consumed and 90 MWh purchased.

The supported quantity share in this example is 70 ÷ 120 = approximately 58.3%. Using purchased quantity alone would give 90 ÷ 120 = 75%, overstating the accepted coverage in this record.

Flag a request to allocate another 10 MWh from the fully allocated 70 MWh batch: it would reuse the same attributes.

This calculation establishes no emission factor, zero-emissions result, physical delivery or causation of new generation.

Fictional quantities only. The pending 20 MWh sits within the unsupported 50 MWh. All other criteria are assumed checked.

Resolve gaps before release

The US EPA’s credible-claims guidance links claims to ownership, retirement and purchase scope. Its US REC context does not determine Indian instrument eligibility.

For instruments that fail the criteria, use the applicable accounting hierarchy rather than an unsupported factor.

GHG Protocol’s 29 July 2026 development update describes ongoing revisions. It schedules consultation on the consolidated GHG Protocol–ISO corporate standard for Q2 2027 and publication for Q4 2028. These are development milestones, not a replacement method already in force. Recheck the published edition and programme requirements when preparing the inventory.

Explore Nitium’s services or contact Nitium to discuss your reporting evidence and agreed support scope. This guide offers no procurement execution, registry certification or independent assurance.

By Anil Khatwani. Published by Nitium Advisory. Reviewed 12 October 2026.