WattTime’s more granular, real-time emissions data resources can assist cities in making more accurate and nuanced assessments of the potential greenhouse gas emissions impact of prospective projects.
Energy Resource Maps
NREL’s maps provide useful insights into the amount of solar insolation, average wind speeds, and other available renewable resources across the U.S.
The Law of Solar: A Guide to Business and Legal Issues – Power Purchase Agreements: Utility-Scale Projects
This guide may be a useful reference for city legal teams regarding power purchase agreement considerations – see the chapter on Power Purchase Agreements: Utility-Scale Projects.
Describing Purchaser Impact in U.S. Voluntary Renewable Energy Markets
This report provides suggested language to help cities transparently and clearly communicate the impact that they are having in terms of energy and greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
Request for Information Response Template
In addition to their Request for Information for power purchase agreement contracts (including virtual power purchase agreements), the City of Boston released a standard response template to simplify the process of comparing the various responses on an apples-to-apples basis.
Emissions & Generation Resource Integrated Database (eGRID) Summary Data
These data tables provide historical, average emission rates at the regional and state level.
Land-Based Wind Market Report
This annual report on the wind industry contains aggregated, standardized pricing of existing power purchase agreements across different regions of the U.S.
Utility-Scale Solar Report
This annual report on the utility-scale solar industry contains aggregated, standardized pricing of existing power purchase agreements across different regions of the U.S.
System Advisor Model (SAM)
The System Advisor Model (SAM) is a free techno-economic software model that facilitates decision-making for people in the renewable energy industry. Cities may want to utilize this tool as a check against proposed power purchase agreement prices and to generally better understand potential costs of renewable energy systems given certain inputs. Microsoft Excel-based versions of the model are also available.
Renewable Energy Credits Guide
The EnergySage website provides basic introductory materials explaining renewable energy credits, also known as renewable energy certificates.