A leading EV manufacturer in North America consumes substantial energy during its manufacturing processes and operates its own DC fast-charging network for customers. The former results in Scope 2 emissions, and the latter in Scope 3 (Category 11) emissions.

To achieve its sustainability goals, the EV manufacturer buys renewable energy by signing PPA contracts with renewable energy developers and uses the Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) from these projects to decarbonize its own operations and its customers’ EV charging. It mitigates its Scope 2 emissions by matching and allocating EACs against its energy consumption. It mitigates its Scope 3 emissions by matching and allocating EACs against the energy consumed by its customers’ EV charging to offer its customers carbon-free “Green Charging” services.

To further exacerbate the challenges, the EV manufacturer requires different time-matching granularities for decarbonizing energy consumption across different uses. It requires matching of hourly EACs on a 24x7 basis against the energy used in its manufacturing processes, yearly EACs against the energy consumed by its customers to charge their EV trucks, and finally quarterly EACs against the energy consumed in reporting Low Carbon Fuel Standards (LCFS).

The EV manufacturer faced significant operational challenges because all business processes were manual. As such, they are labor-intensive, error-prone, not auditable and not scalable.

CFEX delivered a comprehensive Renewable Operation and Decarbonization Platform that transforms how the EV manufacturer operates renewable energy procurement, manages EAC inventories from these projects and other sources, and allocates and matches them against energy consumption to decarbonize Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions. CFEX’s Renewable Operation and Decarbonization Platform includes five applications to help the EV manufacturer decarbonize energy-related Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions:

• Meter Data Management System to centralize the management of renewable generation and energy consumption meter data.
• Contract Management System to centralize the management of PPA contracts, unbundled EAC purchase agreements, and green tariffs from utilities.
• Billing and Settlement System to settle the financials with renewable producers, reconcile invoices with penny-level accuracy, and forecast expenditures on an ongoing basis.
• EAC Inventory Management System to centralize the management of EAC inventories transferred from renewable producers and unbundled EAC purchases. It allocates them to match against energy consumption, thereby offsetting energy-related emissions.
• Scenario-based Simulation and Analytics System to support the EV manufacturer’s decarbonization planning.

To support three EAC allocation strategies and time-matching granularities, the CFEX’s EAC Inventory Management System has been configured to simultaneously accommodate hourly, quarterly, and yearly EAC inventories and matching methods. To support the decarbonization of its customers’ energy consumed for EV charging, CFEX’s EAC Inventory Management System is used to match against customers’ EV charging sessions.

CFEX’s operations team collaborated with the EV manufacturer’s team to set up and configure CFEX’s software in accordance with the EV manufacturer’s business requirements and EAC allocation rules. CFEX also models PPA contracts with penny-level accuracy and operationalizes daily settlement and monthly invoice reconciliation for renewable producers. The PPA settlement results are used to calculate the cost basis of the EV manufacturer’s REC inventories.

The end-to-end system operates fully automatically to execute the daily, monthly, quarterly, and yearly business processes. On a daily basis, meter data is imported, and financials are settled with renewable suppliers to understand the Accounts Payable. Monthly, invoices are automatically imported and reconciled. Yearly, EAC inventories are allocated and matched at different granularities to energy consumption. CFEX, through its automated business processes, reduces labor costs for the EV manufacturer, improves accuracy, minimizes errors, and makes all business processes auditable. With its settlement-grade invoice reconciliation capabilities, CFEX has recovered the overbilled amount from its renewable developers, which exceeds the cost of CFEX’s software.

With CFEX’s comprehensive portfolio of solutions, the EV manufacturer maintains end-to-end auditability, from the amount of renewable energy generated to the number of EACs issued to the EV manufacturer’s renewable energy suppliers and transferred to the EV manufacturer, to the number of EACs allocated and matched against energy consumption, and to the number of EACs retired.