State to allow group to sell "carbon offsets"

State regulators this morning said that N.C. GreenPower, a Raleigh nonprofit, can start selling “carbon offsets” to subsidize programs designed to reduce greenhouse gases.

Carbon offsets have become an increasingly popular way to neutralize environmental damage by letting individuals and businesses financially support green policies and programs, such as reforestation projects. The offsets are offered by numerous organizations around the country and generally are not regulated.

N.C. GreenPower’s carbon offset sales will be among the first in the nation to be regulated. Its proposal required approval from the N.C. Utilities Commission because the nonprofit organization was created by the state and its services are marketed by electric utilities that operate in North Carolina.

N.C. GreenPower’s carbon offsets could be available as soon as August and will be marketed to utility customers by Progress Energy, Duke Energy, municipal utilities and cooperatives. The offsets will be sold in $4 units, with each unit offsetting 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions monthly.

The minimum purchase of $4 a month would offset 6,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. By comparison, a typical car emits about 12,000 pounds of carbon dioxide in one year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

N.C. Green Power will distribute the revenue gained from the tax-deductible purchases to efforts geared at cutting greenhouse gases. The organization will issue a bid for project proposals soon.

N.C. GreenPower for the past five years has been offering another product, the renewable energy certificate, to subsidize the production of green energy, typically electricity generated by solar power or from landfill methane gas.

But a carbon offset will not pay for power generation. Instead it will pay to mitigate greenhouse gases by reforestation or by burning methane gases generated by hog waste lagoons or landfills. Burning eliminates heat-trapping methane that otherwise would be released into the atmosphere.

To qualify for the N.C. GreenPower subsidy, the carbon offset will have to be verified by an independent third party. For example, an independent auditor would verify that a reforestation project was planted and properly maintained and growing, and that the grower was not selling carbon offsets for the same trees to other donors.