The flexibility blind spot in carbon accounting with Killian Daly (EnergyTag)

Oct 16, 2025

Killian Daly, Executive Director at EnergyTag, tackles the complexities of energy certificates and their impact on corporate renewable claims. He highlights the failures of annual matching, which mislead companies into appearing 100% green while relying on fossil fuels. The conversation dives into the revolutionary concept of granular energy certificates, offering real-time tracking of clean power usage. Killian underscores the urgency for transparency in decarbonization claims and how this shift could reshape procurement strategies, storage investments, and accountability.

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ANECDOTE

Experience At Air Liquide Sparked Reform

Killian ran global electricity portfolios at Air Liquide and saw firsthand the mismatch between procurement and carbon accounting.
That experience motivated his work at EnergyTag to reform renewable procurement and accounting.

INSIGHT

Annual Matching Hides Real Consumption

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol currently allows annual matching, letting firms claim renewables regardless of hour produced.
This creates claims like being 'solar powered at 3am' that disconnect from grid reality.

INSIGHT

Geography Mismatch Undermines Certificates

Geographic matching treats large regions as one zone, enabling certificates to flow where power cannot physically go.
Norway issues far more certificates than it can physically export, undermining credibility.

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Energy certificates were designed to support the growth of renewables but today they sit at the centre of a credibility problem. Many companies claim to run on 100% renewable energy, yet most certificates only match electricity consumption on a yearly basis. In reality, businesses may still rely on fossil power for much of the day while using certificates to appear green on paper.

As pressure grows for transparency and real impact, the market is shifting. Granular energy certificates that track clean electricity hour by hour aim to close the gap between claims and reality.

In this episode of Transmission, Killian Daly, Executive Director at EnergyTag joins Joe to explore how 24/7 clean power works, what it means for PPAs, storage, and energy procurement, and why companies like Google and Microsoft are already demanding hourly matching.

Key topics covered:

Why current energy certificates fail to reflect real clean energy use
What granular certificates are and how they enable 24/7 matching
How EnergyTag is defining global standards for hourly energy tracking
Why transparency is now essential to credible decarbonisation claims
What 24/7 procurement means for PPAs, storage, and system flexibility

About our guest:

Killian Daly is Executive director at EnergyTag, a global initiative developing standards for granular energy certificates to accelerate the shift to 24/7 clean electricity. An independent non-profit, advocating for policy reform and enabling the next generation of clean electricity markets. For more information on what EnergyTag do - head to their website.

About Modo Energy:

Modo Energy helps the owners, operators, builders, and financiers of battery energy storage solutions understand the market - and make the most out of their assets.

All of our interviews are available to watch or listen to on the Modo Energy site. To keep up with all of our latest updates, research, analysis, videos, conversations, data visualizations, live events, and more, follow us on LinkedIn. Check out The Energy Academy, our bite-sized video series breaking down how power markets work.