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Glossary · Energy industry & energy transition

24/7 Carbon-Free Energy

24/7 Carbon-Free Energy CFE electricity procurement Green power power system Emissions

24/7 Carbon-Free Energy, or 24/7 CFE for short, refers to an approach to electricity procurement whose goal is to cover every kilowatt-hour consumed with carbon-free electricity sources in the same hour and in the relevant electricity grid. Unlike with annual accounting, it is not enough to procure in total as much carbon-free electricity as is consumed. What also matters is when and where the allocated generation takes place. The international 24/7 CFE Compact additionally links this approach with additional generation and the greatest possible impact on the decarbonisation of the electricity system.

24/7 CFE initially describes a goal and a procurement approach, not automatically a state that has already been achieved. For example, anyone reporting 80 percent hourly coverage is pursuing such an approach but has not yet achieved complete 24/7 coverage. A corresponding voluntary commitment is also not equivalent to a verified proof.

Annual volume and hourly coverage are not the same thing

A simplified calculation example shows the difference: A business needs a constant 1 megawatt of power over 24 hours and thus consumes 24 megawatt-hours. Its allocated solar plant delivers 2 megawatts in each of twelve hours and nothing during the other twelve hours. Generation and consumption are equal in volume over the day. Without storage or complementary generation, however, only 12 of the 24 megawatt-hours are covered simultaneously. The remaining 12 megawatt-hours of solar generation are surpluses; they do not close the gaps at night.

The units must not be confused here: megawatts describe power, megawatt-hours describe energy. An average power of 1 megawatt over one hour corresponds to 1 megawatt-hour. For procurement, therefore, it is not only annual consumption that counts, but the load profile: the distribution of electricity demand over time. A data centre with a steady load has different coverage gaps than a factory that works mainly during the day.

This matching over time is referred to as temporal matching. In a simple evaluation, for each hour at most the amount actually consumed is counted as covered. An over-coverage at midday must not arithmetically cancel out the under-coverage in the evening. If the covered megawatt-hours are then divided by total consumption, a consumption-weighted coverage share results. It is not the same as the share of fully covered hours: an hour with high consumption weighs more heavily in energy terms than an hour with low load.

Time, place and accounting boundary

A meaningful 24/7 balance must connect generation and consumption in a geographically plausible way. The Compact principles provide for procurement in the local or regional electricity grid of the consumption. However, this does not result in a globally uniform geographic scope. The chosen grid or market region must therefore be disclosed.

A common market zone is no guarantee that grid congestion will never occur within that zone. Likewise, the mere recognition of a certificate does not make a distant generation plant a physically available supply source for every site. What matters is what geographic statement the method used actually supports.

24/7 CFE is also not self-sufficiency. A company can allocate its consumption hourly in its accounts and still be entirely dependent on the grid connection, interregional balancing and general supply. Conversely, a company's own solar plant behind the meter does not automatically achieve complete hourly coverage. The approach does not track individual electrons, but allocates measurable energy quantities and their attributes.

Which electricity sources count as carbon-free?

Carbon-free is not synonymous with renewable. Technology-open procurement models can take into account, for example, hydropower, geothermal energy and nuclear energy in addition to wind and solar energy. Which plants are recognised depends on the respective method. The term should not be understood as an assurance that manufacturing, construction, fuel supply and decommissioning cause no greenhouse gas emissions whatsoever.

Biomass is not categorically emission-free because of its CO₂ release during combustion. Fossil power plants with CO₂ capture are also not automatically CO₂-free: capture is not necessarily complete, and upstream emissions remain to be examined. Their possible inclusion in broader models of clean or low-emission generation does not replace a transparent definition of emission boundaries. A robust statement therefore names the permitted technologies, the greenhouse gases considered and the process steps examined.

Certificates, supply contracts and storage

Guarantees of origin document energy attributes; they are not proof of direct physical delivery. In the EU framework under Article 19 of the Renewable Energy Directive, their standard size is 1 megawatt-hour, whereby smaller units are possible under certain conditions. This unit of quantity says nothing about temporal resolution. Describing guarantees of origin across the board as purely annual certificates would therefore be wrong. For renewable electricity, the Directive provides for information on the generation period corresponding to the imbalance settlement period. However, this does not imply a general obligation for all electricity customers to procure fully on a 24/7 basis.

Granular certificates serve finer temporal documentation. The EnergyTag Scheme Standard, Version 2, as read, describes certificates for generation intervals of at most one hour and rules against double counting. A timestamp alone is not sufficient, however: the same quantity of generation must not be allocated to several consumers as their own carbon-free supply.

A power purchase agreement can contractually secure generation over the long term. However, a single solar or wind contract does not guarantee full hourly coverage. The agreed delivery profile, the handling of shortfalls and surpluses, and the transfer of the required energy attributes must be examined. The contract title alone does not answer these questions.

Storage shifts energy between hours; it does not itself generate additional carbon-free energy. Its accounting must link charging origin, discharge and losses and prevent double use of the attributes. EnergyTag describes for this purpose a passing on of generation attributes via the storage, taking losses into account.

Suppose a storage unit takes in 10 megawatt-hours of demonstrably carbon-free electricity and later, at an assumed overall efficiency of 90 percent, releases 9 megawatt-hours. For the later consumption, 9 rather than 10 megawatt-hours are then available. The charging energy also must not at the same time be claimed as direct coverage of other consumption. In the daily example, to supply 12 megawatt-hours at night at this efficiency, around 13.33 megawatt-hours would have to be charged; the surplus of 12 megawatt-hours there would therefore not suffice.

Investment signals and costs

Hourly procurement directs demand to supply gaps and thus to complementary generation profiles, storage and flexibility. An IEA modelling study for India and Indonesia shows broader technology portfolios than with purely annual coverage. Full hourly coverage was at the same time more expensive there; the results are not generally valid price premiums for other countries or companies.

In practice, one can start on both sides: a business can procure additional matching generation or schedule shiftable work in hours with available carbon-free generation. However, not every process is flexible in time. An order with a fixed completion deadline, a continuous smelting process or a time-critical computing task sets different limits than a freely schedulable charging process. A credible procurement concept must take these operational limits into account rather than assume arbitrary load shifting.

Emissions accounting and actual climate impact

24/7 CFE and Scope 2 market-based are not equivalent. The GHG Protocol is revising its electricity accounting rules. According to its published status of 16 October 2026, stricter temporal and geographic requirements as well as a transition between different market-based methods were still under development. As of 11 November 2026, these proposals must not be presented as a general hourly obligation that has already been finally adopted.

Improved allocation is also not yet a complete proof of impact. For that, it must be examined separately whether additional generation arises, which fossil generation is displaced and how the procurement affects the rest of the system. Optimising a company's profile is not automatically the most cost-effective solution for the entire electricity system.

Anyone assessing a 24/7 CFE claim should therefore ask at least about the period, the sites covered, the geographic boundary, the permitted technologies, the certificate system and the actual degree of coverage. The treatment of storage, residual quantities and data gaps is equally important. Only this information turns the buzzword into a verifiable procurement claim. Annual coverage of 100 percent, a high hourly coverage share and complete coverage in every hour are different outcomes.

Sources

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Edited by eCMS on 11.11.2026 13:58

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