The Green House Gas (GHG) Protocol has been a key driver of corporate renewable energy adoption, especially in the form of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) to procure solar power, wind power and other forms of renewable electricity. Developed by the World Resources Institute (WRI), the GHG Protocol standards were adopted in 2015. They are now up for revision with final publication of the revised standards expected in late 2026 or early 2027. Given their importance for corporate renewable energy adoption, the proposed changes are being hotly debated by various stakeholders.
To drill down on the ramifications of these proposed changes, pv magazine met with Mike Nolan, Director of Renewable Energy & Carbon Advisory at Schneider Electric, at the BNEF Summit in New York City on April 21, 2026. Shortly before the Summit, Schneider Electric had submitted a detailed counter-proposal arguing that overly prescriptive requirements could raise procurement costs and discourage the very PPA investments that have driven large-scale renewable energy growth.
According to Nolan, “as part of the process, more ambitious rules have been proposed. Two are particularly relevant here. First, to meet the requirements, renewable energy would need to be located within a particular region where the power is being consumed. Second, it would ideally be time-matched, meaning you would have to match generation to your consumption on an ongoing basis.”
Nolan elaborates: “These are ambitious ideas meant to move progress forward. However, Schneider and a number of other organizations, including NGOs, feel they could actually be counterproductive. The main reason is that markets are not currently ready to support this at scale. There are certain pockets or regions in the U.S. and globally where you can implement regional mechanisms and track hourly data, but this is not possible across the U.S. or worldwide. At utility-scale, such rules would effectively prevent aggregating load across regions, which is currently acceptable in the United States and parts of Europe. There is strong concern that, while the intent is good, making such rules mandatory would have a negative influence on the very progress they aim to accelerate.”
Google, a large buyer of renewable energy, has been a staunch advocate of rewriting these rules to provide for a better geographic mapping of renewable energy generation and consumption, as well as a time-matching of generation and demand. On the other hand, corporate PPA structures have evolved to give considerable flexibility to both the renewable energy developer and the corporate offtaker. Limiting this flexibility by imposing geographic limitations and time-matching could soften demand for PPAs at a time when renewable energy incentives are already being scaled back, for example in the U.S. by retiring project tax credits earlier than established by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Nolan also points to the added complexity these measures would involve: “Certain companies [like large technology companies] have the resources, electricity teams, and energy teams to pursue this level of sophistication. The vast majority of companies we advise do not. Most corporates that are buying energy today do not have large internal energy teams, data analysts, or dedicated software to handle this level of complexity.”
Nolan makes it clear that Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments continue to drive corporate renewable energy procurement, even if ESG no longer features as prominently in the news as when Biden’s IRA was enacted. As Nolan observes, another big driver has been added to the mix as electricity demand ramps up in markets like the U.S. “[We] see risk mitigation becoming a critical dimension. Companies are asking: what will AI-driven data center demand do to future power prices and to the availability of supply, especially in certain markets?”
At the BNEF Summit Jigar Shah, director of the Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office during the Biden administration, highlighted the 9% annual increase in electricity rates that could be in store for the U.S. as AI consumption ramps up. With that prospect locking in renewable energy PPAs at still favorable prices becomes all the more urgent and it would seem to be the wrong time to tighten the screws on the GHG Protocol, which would make it harder for companies to both reduce their Scope 2 emissions and their exposure to rising electricity rates. It will be interesting to see where the debate on the revision of the GHG Protocol goes as deliberations enter their final phase before publication of the new rules later this year or early in 2027.
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