Renewable energy credits (RECs) procured by Seneca Environmental and retired on behalf of Pinterest is a story about honeybees, a Tribal-owned company and Pinterest.
The RECs come from the co-op-owned Connexus Athens Solar project in Minnesota, which has a sister site in Ramsey that sits its panels about 1 meter from the ground to enable pollinator-friendly vegetation underneath the panels. This way, both the solar panels and the vegetation can harvest the sun for renewable energy, and the native pollinators and honeybees, respectively. (And yes, the beekeepers do sell the honey).
(Read: Solar and pollinators: a photo essay)
Seneca Environmental is a Tribal-owned business whose profits go directly toward supporting the needs of the members of the Seneca Nation, whose territory is in western New York. The company was established to deliver projects at scale for customers wanting to support historically underserved communities. Seneca Environmental reported that it is building a Tribal workforce and Indigenous enterprise capacity to benefit current and future generations.
The Tribal-owned company procured and then retired the RECs on Pinterest’s behalf. Matt Renner, the company’s vice president, told pv magazine USA “this is the first type of sale that we know of for a corporate global tech company with a Tribal-owned enterprise of its kind.”
“We want to be a one-stop shop for corporations and the government that want to do a procurement of ranks so we can get [RECs] anywhere, even if they’re the more traditional REC product,” Renner said. “Our capabilities as a provider of RECs is part of a broader strategy to help bring Tribal-owned RECs to market,” he said.
The RECs will go to 15 counties where Pinterest operates. According to Renner, the sale demonstrates Seneca Environmental’s “broader effort to be a power marketing and REC marketing hub both for RECs that we create from our own projects, [and] potentially from RECs from other Tribal- owned projects.”
RECs are the currency of the renewable energy market. Each REC represents 1 MWh of renewable energy produced and delivered to the power grid. When a company has RECs associated with its electricity purchases, it can claim to its shareholders or tout in its marketing materials that the company uses clean energy or is making progress toward its “net-zero” goals.
When generated electricity goes to the grid, it mixes with other sources of electricity and becomes indistinguishable from electricity produced by another source, such as coal. RECs make it possible to credibly claim an electricity purchase was for a renewable energy source because they are trackable from the point of generation to the customer.
“For any large energy buyer, it can be very challenging to buy renewable energy in the quantities that they need in such diverse locations,” Renner said. “So RECs serve as a great way to get those renewable energy needs met.”
The RECs Seneca Environmental sold to Pinterest comply with RE100. While not an official standard, RE100’s technical criteria provides an outline for corporate renewable energy purchases to gauge the quality of their climate action.
(Read: “RE100 and the corporate renewable electricity boom”)
Criteria such as RE100 help give weight behind a corporation’s claim to be green. However, it is important to note the distinction between unbundled and bundled RECs. Bundled RECs are generally preferred because they mean the credit purchaser has invested in the physical buildout of renewables. With unbundled RECs, the company is buying renewable energy that was already generated, so they did not create positive impact through new renewable energy generation, but they sustained it.
In this case, Pinterest purchased the RECs bundled. According to the social media company known for its pinboards, Pinterest uses RECS to offset home electricity use for its employees who work from home. However, whether airing out a transaction finds it bundled or unbundled, to some, they can bring a breath of fresh air to regions with grids that are heavy in fossil fuels.
Prior to the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Brenner said it was very challenging or impossible for Tribal governments to own and operate renewable energy assets and receive the investment tax credit for them. “As a result, the tribal renewable energy industry is just getting started,” he said.
“The federal government programs specifically tailored to supporting Tribally owned and developed renewable energy have been very important to the business model that we’ve developed,” Renner said. “All of this has helped show that there’s a real desire in Native communities to be a part of their renewable energy industry.”
Under the IRA, the Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator seeds state and local clean energy financing institutions and support deployment of clean energy technologies. Half of those investments have traditionally been prioritized for disadvantaged communities. Programs specific to tribal communities offered rebates on the purchase of efficient electric appliances, to bring clean power to homes that have lacked electricity.
(Read: “How the Inflation Reduction Act clean energy programs benefit U.S. communities and business”)
Seneca said the renewable energy market became more accessible to both Native communities and their Tribal-owned businesses after the passing of legislation and initiatives such as the IRA, the Infrastructure, Investment and Jobs Act, and Justice40. The White House removed Justice40’s official webpage from its website the day President Trump took office, and its informational pages on the Department of Energy’s website the following day.
When asked how he sees the Trump Administration impacting the company’s ability to grow in the renewable energy space, Renner said that for now, Seneca Environmental is staying out of politics until they have more clarity on what’s actually happening.
“There’s been 30 years of pre-history, at least of people doing amazing work to lay the groundwork for Tribally owned renewable energy industry,” he said. “What we’re seeing now is that tribes are ready to be in this industry and Seneca Environmental, specifically, is building the capacity to be able to provide a high-value REC.”
Seneca said the company plans to expand its REC offerings from Tribal-owned renewable energy projects.
“In the not too distant future, there will be Tribal RECs for sale from tribal projects, and we hope that corporates and the government will recognize the extra value and impact of those RECs when they make their procurement decisions,” Renner said.
(Read: “Solar development partnership supports Tribal communities and corporate ESG goals”)
“Native nations and tribes have been historically left out of the energy industry,” Renner said. He noted that while he himself is not a Native, he thinks the future of Tribal-owned renewables “is a critical part of the path towards climate justice that we all want to build, or to those of us who understand the risks of the climate emergency.”
