For years, wind and solar projects supplied a large share of the voluntary market’s cheapest credits. They were easy to understand and easy to buy. They are also the clearest example of how a project type can lose its additionality when the world changes around it.
Renewable energy carbon credits are issued for clean electricity that displaces fossil power, and most grid-connected projects no longer pass the additionality test. This article explains why, what the ICVCM decided in 2024 and 2026, which renewable projects can still qualify, and what buyers should do with renewable credits they already hold.
Why renewable energy credits lost their additionality
A carbon credit should finance a reduction that would not happen otherwise (additionality explained). In the 2000s, a wind farm in an emerging economy often needed carbon revenue to make its numbers work. Since then, wind and solar have become among the cheapest sources of new electricity in much of the world. A project that is profitable on power sales alone does not need a carbon credit, and selling one does not change whether it gets built.
Standards responded early. Verra stopped registering new grid-connected renewable projects outside the least developed countries when it launched version 4 of its programme in 2019, and Gold Standard limited most grid-connected renewables to least developed countries, small island developing states and landlocked developing countries. But many older projects kept issuing credits, which is why renewable credits stayed cheap and plentiful.
What the ICVCM decided
In August 2024, the ICVCM approved none of the renewable energy methodologies submitted to it for the CCP label. It found that the tools used to demonstrate additionality and to calculate grid emission factors, inherited from the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism, were not strict enough (Verra on the decision).
In April 2026, the ICVCM approved Verra’s revised methodology for grid-connected renewables, VMR0017, with a condition: it only qualifies where a benchmark analysis with Verra’s new tool shows that carbon credit revenue decisively improves the project’s financial performance (ICVCM decision). Verra also announced that the old CDM-based methodologies can no longer be used for new registrations or crediting period renewals from 1 January 2027 (Verra).
For a buyer, that settles the direction: future high-quality renewable credits will come from a small set of projects where the financial case is documented, mostly in markets where clean power still struggles to get financed.
Renewable credits that can still make sense
Projects under the new conditional methodology, with a published benchmark analysis that passes the test.
Least developed and fragile markets, where finance is scarce and grid power is often fossil-based.
Off-grid and mini-grid projects, such as solar home systems or village grids, which replace diesel or kerosene and often bring strong co-benefits. These usually fall under other methodologies; check them on their own merits.
Large grid-connected wind or solar in middle-income countries, registered years ago under CDM-based tools, is the category to treat with the most caution.
Tip from Bernard de Wit, Founder of Regreener: “If a renewable credit is offered at a price far below other project types, ask for the investment analysis and the year the project started operating. A plant that was built and earning money long before it sold credits is very hard to defend as additional.”
What to do with renewable credits you already hold
Many companies have renewable credits from earlier years in their records. They do not have to be hidden, but they should be described accurately:
Do not present them as removals or as high-integrity offsets. They are avoidance credits whose additionality is now widely questioned.
Do not use them for neutrality claims. EU consumer rules that apply from 27 September 2026 ban offset-based neutrality claims on products in any case (EmpCo carbon neutral claim ban).
Shift future purchases towards credits with a CCP label or a strong independent rating, and towards removals where your targets require them.
Explain the change in your reporting: why you bought them then, and why your quality policy has moved since.
Our article on why you should not buy cheap carbon credits explains the wider pattern, and Core Carbon Principles explained shows what the CCP label covers.
“Renewable energy credits did real good when wind and solar were expensive. The market’s mistake was continuing to sell them after the economics changed. Buyers who still hold them are better off saying so plainly than defending them as something they are not.”
Bernard de Wit, Founder of Regreener
Check the additionality of a renewable project
Our free credit quality checker scores a project on additionality, baseline and permanence, and tells you what to ask your supplier.
