Is a wind farm in North Dakota helping make Cambridge, Massachusetts’ municipal electricity carbon neutral?

The City of Cambridge is part of the Consortium for Climate Solutions, a group of cities, universities and health care institutions that signed a long-term virtual power purchase agreement for renewable energy. 

That agreement includes the Bowman Wind project in Bowman County, North Dakota.

While the wind farm does not provide electricity directly to Cambridge, it does generate renewable energy credits for producing clean electricity. In return for financially supporting the wind farm over the 15-year contract, the City of Cambridge gets a share of those credits.

The city can then use those credits to offset the emissions associated with its municipal electricity use under standard greenhouse gas accounting rules, even though the power itself is produced outside Massachusetts.

This arrangement helps finance new renewable energy while allowing Cambridge to match its municipal electricity use with an equivalent amount of clean energy generation.