Dive Brief:

• The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) released a database of system-wide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions rates of their investor-owned utility members on Thursday.
• The project, created with the World Resources Institute (WRI), enables corporate customers to calculate their own emissions related to their energy use, known as "Scope 2" GHG emissions.
• The database currently contains about half of EEI's members, with utility subsidiaries submitting data for 2018 and 2019. Among the first participants are subsidiaries of Exelon, Duke Energy, American Electric Power, Entergy, First Energy Corp., Southern Company and Xcel Energy.

Dive Insight:

Utilities have been setting their own ambitious carbon reduction goals as corporations increasingly set targets for clean energy. The transparency from the new database is meant to strengthen the partnership between electric companies and their customers, according to WRI.

"Having granular, accurate, consistent, and timely data from our utility partners is an important component to reaching" the net zero carbon goal across Amazon by 2040, Kara Hurst, vice president of sustainability at the company, said in a statement.

Utility emission data is also maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), but that data is formulated in different ways.

EPA data is "also very helpful for a number of applications," Lori Bird, WRI's U.S. energy director, told Utility Dive. In contrast, "the EEI dataset is aimed at helping customers do their GHG emissions reporting more accurately."

Having a single place online to find all that data creates consistency in the reporting and makes data acquisition easier for customers.

"In the past, companies have had to contact multiple utilities to obtain the data they need for their GHG accounting," Bird said.

A group of utilities and companies with GHG reduction goals on WRI's clean power council weighed in on the template, she added.

"The formulas and instructions were developed with [EEI] member company input to make sure that calculations were consistent with the rules and requirements in companies' jurisdiction, and their business practices," EEI spokesperson Brian Reil told Utility Dive.

Annual updates will be available in early June each year based on data collected from EEI member companies.