The Carbon World Meets the IPMVP

For some time the Efficiency Valuation Organization (EVO) has been supporting efforts to “marry up” its International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) methods with those of the GHG project accounting world. These efforts have finally borne fruit in the form of a protocol recently published by the government of Alberta in Canada. Emission offsets are allowed under Alberta’s Specified Gas Emitters Regulation. The government has recently completed public review and published its Commercial and Institutional Buildings Energy Efficiency Protocol, which is freely available for download on Alberta Environment’s site.

The document refers to the IPMVP and uses many of its terms, while using ISO 14064-2 GHG accounting terminology. This new document is applicable to any form of energy efficiency project, both retrofit and new construction.

This is the first published guidance document on the use of IPMVP for reporting GHG impacts that comply with the relevant ISO standard on GHG project accounting. This trail-blazing document should help the global carbon trading community to recognize that all energy efficiency projects can be treated the same under emerging GHG accounting methods. Hopefully it will reduce the complications energy efficiency project developers face in presenting their projects for international trading.

The document is also trail-blazing in that it specifies both simple and advanced M&V approaches. It requires a 10 percent discount be applied when using specified simple M&V approaches.

Though titled for commercial and institutional buildings, we suspect very little would change to make it suit all types of energy users. It is also interesting to note that it specifies the use of a Certified Measurement and Verification Professional (CMVP) for preparing reports.