Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder: A Comparison of ‘Green Power’ Certification Programs in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States

With growing concerns about air quality issues and the continuing restructuring of electricity supply industries world-wide, the prospects for ‘green power’ - that is, environmentally-friendly electricity - are probably better now than they have ever been. What kinds of power are deemed to be ‘green’, however, is the subject of much debate. In an effort to standardise the definition of green power, certification programs are being developed independently by different countries at the national or sub-national level. Effectively, these are the mechanisms by which green power is currently being defined. This article compares the attributes of four certification programs for green power-those in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. The goal is to determine the ways in which these programs are similar, and the extent to which they are different. Though there is no definitive effort to determine which certification program is ‘best’, the key debates surrounding the most contentious parts of green power certification programs are identified and investigated. Accordingly, the policy discussion about the relative merits of different approaches is informed and stimulated.