New platform aims to enhance energy accountability

New Australian tech is helping companies trace and audit the hourly source of renewable power supply from projects anywhere in the transmission grid.

Quintrace, a digital platform developed by Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners, is designed to give its customers real-time visibility into their hourly carbon footprint, while adhering to the latest carbon accounting standards for energy consumption, generation and storage.

The technology comes at a time when major energy consumers are required to meet increasingly stringent carbon accounting and reporting regulations.

Quintrace aims to meet this need via a dashboard tool that assimilates all power supply and consumption data powered through a cloud-hosted platform. Quinbrook said this enables its customers to trace the source of every kilowatt-hour consumed at their operational facilities, matching it back to their nominated renewable supply projects located within the grid on a 24/7 basis.

David Scaysbrook, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Quinbrook, said the technology would help protect companies against accusations of greenwashing.

“As many corporations focused on sustainability now realise, there is a typical mismatch between the times when the renewables projects they buy power from are generating compared to when their facilities are consuming power,” he said.

“It’s now critical to know the carbon intensity of the grid power being used to charge batteries before that stored energy is supplied to a customer. Companies must be able to prove and audit their carbon footprint reductions along with the need to meet increasingly stringent carbon reporting that presents huge and costly challenges.”

Quintrace users can access hourly carbon calculations in accordance with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, as well as emerging standards like EnergyTag. Additionally, users can record and manage Energy Attribute Certificates, which encompass Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) and Guarantees of Origin (GOs).

The platform also facilitates the recording of annual and hourly energy flows under power purchase agreements (PPAs), including custom PPAs. For users employing battery storage, Quintrace provides advanced tracking and tracing support, enabling real-time monitoring of battery carbon intensity with the ability to support optimisation of both commercial and carbon impact objectives in real time.

“Quintrace includes one of the first applications of the EnergyTag hourly certificate standard to real-world assets on an operational basis,” said James Allan, Senior Director and Head of Digital Applications.

“To date, this includes Quinbrook portfolio company assets as diverse as commercial and industrial loads, utility and behind-the-meter renewable generators, and utility and behind-the-meter battery storage.”

An example from the Quinbrook portfolio is renewable energy company Energy Locals, which Allan said is using Quintrace to track the source of renewable supply meeting power demand at its many community energy sites across Sydney.

“Using Quintrace, Energy Locals can demonstrate that 32% of power consumption at its Schofields Garden site so far this year has been met by onsite renewable energy on a 24/7 hourly basis, assisted by onsite battery storage. This rises to 79% hourly renewable supply when including offsite supply under PPA. That is a game changer,” Allan said.

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