What are I-REC and I-TRACK Certificates?
An I-REC and an I-TRACK Certificate are Energy Attribute Certificates (EAC) issued in line with the I-TRACK Foundation’s Accredited Electricity Product Code, and they both represent the environmental attributes of the generation of a one-megawatt hour (MWh) of energy produced.
I-REC(E) vs I-TRACK(E)
An I-REC (International Renewable Energy Certificate) for Electricity [I-REC(E)] is an exchangeable Energy Attribute Certificate (EAC) that conveys information about the production of a unit of renewable electricity (with the ‘renewable’ being defined by the International Energy Agency (IEA) (World Energy Outlook 2023) such as where the electricity was produced, the capacity of the Production Facility, and the energy source.
Similarly, an I-TRACK for Electricity certificate [I-TRACK(E)] is also an exchangeable EAC that conveys information about the production of a unit of electricity. The key difference is that the source for an I-TRACK(E) is non-renewable.
To determine whether an energy source falls under I-REC(E) statistics or I-TRACK(E) statistics, the definition of the International Energy Agency (IEA) is being followed (World Energy Outlook 2023, IEA).
Why the distinction?
The distinction between an I-TRACK(E) (non-renewable sources) and an I-REC(E) (renewable sources) allows for the issuance of every single MWh in the country to be tracked and allocated to one specific end-user regardless of the energy source. Without the introduction of the I-TRACK(E), an I-REC(E) would have had to be issued for all energy sources which could have been confusing for end-users considering the “REC” in I-REC stands for Renewable Energy Certificate.
What does this all mean?
The impact of this change is unnoticeable for almost everyone as over 99% of currently issued certificates remain an I-REC(E). The only impacted energy source with significant issuance in recent years is nuclear which will now be seen as I-TRACK(E) issuance in our monthly statistics.