Technical Paper | Electricity-specific emission factors ...

Technical Paper | Electricity-specific emission factors for grid electricity

August 2011

Authors: Matthew Brander1, Aman Sood, Charlotte Wylie, Amy Haughton, and Jessica Lovell Internal Reviewers: Gary Davis

Introduction

Corporate greenhouse gas accounting involves quantifying the greenhouse gas emissions associated with a business or organisation's activities, including the consumption of grid electricity. Electricity consumption is often one of the largest sources of emissions for reporting companies, and it is therefore important that the measurement of these emissions is as accurate as possible. However, for the majority of countries the best available factors for calculating emissions from electricity consumption are the composite electricity/heat emission factors published by the International Energy Agency (IEA 2010), which are also the basis for most of the grid electricity factors in the WRI tool for emissions from purchased electricity (WRI 2011), and Defra/DECC's factors for non-UK countries (Defra/DECC 2011a). Because these factors include the emissions from heat generation as well as electricity they may not be an accurate proxy for grid electricity emissions, i.e. the emissions from heat generation may skew the factor upwards or downwards. This paper presents a methodology and results for electricity-specific emission factors based on alternative data available from the IEA. The paper also provides a discussion of the reasons for the differences between the IEA composite electricity/heat factors and the new electricity-specific factors.

The new methodology for electricity-specific factors is also applied to address two further limitations with the composite factors published by the IEA: firstly the composite factors are only for CO2 emissions, and do not cover the other relevant Kyoto gases; and secondly they are only for emissions per kWh generated, and do not provide factors for transmission and distribution (T&D) losses, or emissions per kWh of electricity consumed. Using the new electricity-specific methodology this paper provides factors for CO2, CH4 and N2O, and emission factors for T&D losses and for "consumed" electricity2.

1 Contact matthew.brander@ecometrica.co.uk 2 A distinction can be made between three different emission factors for grid electricity: "generated"; "T&D losses"; and "consumed". The "generated" emission factor is for emissions per kWh of electricity generated within a country (i.e. total emissions divided by the total amount of electricity generated within a country); the

Background

There is growing interest in corporate GHG accounting, as evidenced by the number of companies reporting to the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) which increased from approximately 3,000 in 2010 to over 10,000 in 2011. In addition to the growing level of voluntary reporting there are moves to make GHG reporting mandatory, for instance the UK government is considering the introduction of mandatory reporting for all large companies in the UK (Defra 2011b).

Current best practice for corporate GHG accounting is the WBCSD/WRI Greenhouse Gas Protocol (WBCSD/WRI 2004), which categorises emissions into three scopes. Scope 1 emissions are from sources owned or operated by the reporting company; Scope 2 emissions are from the generation of electricity or steam imported by the reporting company; and Scope 3 emissions are all other indirect emissions associated with the company's activities. The GHG Protocol states that Scopes 1 and 2 should be reported as a minimum, and therefore electricity consumption is a key component of almost all corporate GHG inventories. In addition to Scope 2 emissions, the emissions associated with transmission and distribution losses from the electricity grid can be reported as Scope 3 emissions by the company which consumes grid electricity3.

Emissions from electricity consumption are calculated by applying an "emission factor" to the quantity of electricity consumed by the reporting company. To give an example, the emission factor for UK grid electricity in 2009 is 0.48322 kgCO2 per kWh generated (Defra 2011a), and so if a company uses 1,000 kWh of grid electricity the associated Scope 2 emissions are 483.22 kgCO2.

Country-specific emission factors for grid electricity are published for some countries, for example Defra/DECC publish factors for the UK, and the Environmental Protection Agency publish factors for the US (EPA 2010). However, for most other countries the best available factors are the composite electricity/heat factors in CO2 Emissions from Fuel Combustion published by the IEA (IEA 2010). As noted above, the use of composite electricity/heat factors as a proxy for grid electricity factors may not be accurate, e.g. if a country has low carbon electricity generation but high carbon heat generation then the composite electricity/heat factor will overestimate the emissions from electricity consumption. Similarly, if a country has relatively high carbon electricity generation and low carbon heat generation then using the composite factors will result in an underestimation of grid electricity emissions.

It is worth noting that the relative carbon intensity of electricity and heat generation is also determined by the relative efficiency of electricity and heat generation as well as the types of fuel or generation technologies used for each, i.e. even if both electricity and heat are generated from the

"T&D losses" factor shows the emissions associated with the electricity which is lost through the transmission and distribution grid per kWh of electricity consumed within the country (i.e. total kWhs of electricity lost in transmission and distribution multiplied by the "generated" factor, and the result is divided by the total amount of electricity consumed in the country); and the "consumed" factor gives the emissions per kWh of electricity consumed in the country (i.e. total emissions divided by total kWhs of electricity consumed, or alternatively it is the sum of the "generated" and "T&D loss" factors). 3 The emissions from T&D losses are Scope 2 for the company which owns or operates the transmission and distribution grid.

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same type of fuel the heat generated will tend to have a lower carbon intensity as the efficiency of heat generation tends to be higher.

Methodology

The methodology for electricity-specific emission factors involves calculating the total emissions from the generation of electricity within a country and dividing that figure by the total amount of electricity produced by the country. Data for the quantities of different fossil fuels combusted within dedicated electricity plants, and also within combined heat and power (CHP) plants were sourced from the IEA (2011a). Total emissions were calculated from these data by applying the appropriate default emission factors from the Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (IPCC 2006).

An additional calculation was needed in order to allocate a proportion of the emissions from CHP plants to the electricity produced. In order to make this allocation the efficiency method was used; this method uses the efficiencies of dedicated electricity and dedicated heat plants to derive a ratio for allocating emissions between the two outputs of the CHP. We assumed that the efficiency of a dedicated electricity plant is 35% and the efficiency of a dedicated heat plant is 80%, which is consistent with the figures used in WBCSD/WRI CHP tool (WBCSD/WRI 2006). The efficiency method also requires information on the outputs of electricity and heat from CHP plants, and in the absence of other data it is assumed that the electricity output is 0.35 kWh for every kWh input, and the heat output is 0.45 kWh per kWh input (with a total assumed efficiency of 80%). The calculation for the efficiency method is as follows:

Total emissions attributable to heat

=

(0.45/0.8) / ((0.45/0.80) + (0.35/0.35))

=

36%

Total emissions attributable to electricity

=

64%

This allocation factor was applied to the total emissions from CHP plants in each country to give the total emissions attributable to the electricity generated by CHP.

Once the total emissions from both dedicated electricity generation and electricity from CHP were calculated the total was divided by the total amount of electricity generated. Data for the total amount of electricity generated by each country were also sourced from IEA statistics (IEA 2011b). In order to calculate CH4 and N2O emissions the same steps were followed, applying the appropriate emission factors for CH4 and N2O from the IPCC (2006).

In order to calculate emission factors for transmission and distribution losses the T&D emission factors in the Guidelines to Defra/DECC's GHG Conversion Factors for Company Reporting (Defra/DECC 2011a) were used to derive T&D loss rates, i.e. T&D losses as a percentage of total generated electricity. The Defra/DECC guidelines only publish T&D loss emission factors for European countries and the UK's main trading partners, and therefore a "world average" T&D loss rate factor was derived from the countries for which factors were available, and was applied to all

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other the countries in the world. The emission factors for consumed electricity (i.e. emissions per kWh consumed) were derived by summing the generated emission factor and the T&D loss factor4.

Results

Table 1 below shows the results for CO2 per kWh of electricity generated using the electricity-specific method, and the composite electricity/heat factors from the IEA. The difference between the two factors in gCO2/kWh and the percentage difference are also shown. The full results for CO2, CH4, and N2O for generated, T&D losses, and consumed electricity are presented in Appendix I.

Table 1. Results and comparison with IEA composite electricity/heat factors

Africa Albania Algeria Angola Argentina Armenia Asia excluding China Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahrain Bangladesh Belarus Belgium Benin Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Darussalam Bulgaria Cambodia Cameroon Canada Caspian Region Central/Eastern Europe

Electricityspecific factors (kgCO2/kWh)

0.73576632 0.009130088 0.66420926 0.037950113 0.391932833 0.128177031 0.928290633 0.991757127 0.176796609 0.391831037 0.726834092 0.63714323 0.610873739 0.224767376 0.700678676 0.534996875 1.32624734 1.825675055 0.092643638 0.819498808 1.166008316 1.170839671 0.216568535 0.179763325 0.588934769 0.822497149

IEA composite electricity/heat

factors (kgCO2/kWh)

0.6192752 0.0138455 0.5964572 0.0375851 0.3659994 0.1646095

0.883306 0.182756 0.4164636 0.6507411 0.5737064 0.3033955 0.248975 0.6968456 0.4970934 0.9282924 1.7891616 0.088854 0.7545034 0.4888623 1.1597317 0.2302538 0.18058

-

Difference (gCO2/kWh)

0.11649 -0.00472 0.06775 0.00037 0.02593 -0.03643

0.10845 -0.00596 -0.02463 0.07609 0.06344 0.30748 -0.02421 0.00383 0.03790 0.39795 0.03651 0.00379 0.06500 0.67715 0.01111 -0.01369 -0.00082

-

Difference (%)

18.8% -34.1% 11.4% 1.0% 7.1% -22.1%

12.3% -3.3% -5.9% 11.7% 11.1% 101.3% -9.7% 0.6% 7.6% 42.9% 2.0% 4.3% 8.6% 138.5% 1.0% -5.9% -0.5%

-

4 Factors for emissions per kWh "consumed" are useful for life cycle assessments as they show the total pointof-combustion emissions per kWh of electricity used.

4

Chile

China (People's Republic of China and Hong Kong China) China, People's Republic of Chinese Taipei Colombia Congo Congo, Democratic Republic of Costa Rica Cote d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominican Republic Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Finland Former USSR France Gabon Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Greece Guatemala Haiti Honduras Hong Kong (China) Hungary Iceland IEA Europe IEA North America IEA Total

Electricityspecific factors (kgCO2/kWh)

0.408614261

0.972581723

0.974624913 0.578261935 0.111425218 0.120109978 0.004158606 0.063756361 0.501179338 0.386458364 0.938086187 0.771651255 0.93846226 0.374745583 0.641741728 0.269613843 0.500886095 0.256072792 0.677991638 1.906907035 0.118948451 0.225457295 0.537643872 0.070927465 0.425188882 0.089456936 0.672220452 0.214767509 0.772321446 1.921092777 0.341534936 0.483325309 0.415487352 0.786680632 0.589672564 0.000193484 0.453760609 0.499440779 0.488897248

IEA composite electricity/heat

factors (kgCO2/kWh)

0.4115191

-

0.7448369 -

0.1070157 0.1075293 0.0038943 0.0634452 0.4488374 0.3414155 0.9134552 0.7586603 0.543894 0.307755 0.6264611 0.2619708 0.4597638 0.2521738 0.6691777 0.7518614 0.1185277 0.187118

0.082717 0.4011059 0.0807383 0.441181 0.2143357 0.7567048 0.731218 0.3357278 0.4804733 0.4092977 0.7574229 0.330842 0.000749

-

Difference (gCO2/kWh)

-0.00290

-

0.22979 -

0.00441 0.01258 0.00026 0.00031 0.05234 0.04504 0.02463 0.01299 0.39457 0.06699 0.01528 0.00764 0.04112 0.00390 0.00881 1.15505 0.00042 0.03834

-0.01179 0.02408 0.00872 0.23104 0.00043 0.01562 1.18987 0.00581 0.00285 0.00619 0.02926 0.25883 -0.00056

-

Difference (%)

-0.7%

-

30.9% -

4.1% 11.7% 6.8% 0.5% 11.7% 13.2% 2.7% 1.7% 72.5% 21.8% 2.4% 2.9% 8.9% 1.5% 1.3% 153.6% 0.4% 20.5%

-14.3% 6.0% 10.8% 52.4% 0.2% 2.1% 162.7% 1.7% 0.6% 1.5% 3.9% 78.2% -74.2%

-

5

India Indonesia Iran, Islamic Republic of Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Korea, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Republic of Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Latin America Latvia Lebanon Libyan Arab Jamahiriya Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Malaysia Malta Mexico Middle East Moldova, Republic of Mongolia Morocco Mozambique Myanmar Namibia Nepal Netherlands Netherlands Antilles New Zealand Nicaragua Nigeria

Electricityspecific factors (kgCO2/kWh)

1.333174843 0.684693977 0.631113877 0.820614626 0.521193132 0.740303524 0.410898038 0.796106233 0.443356848 0.643924449 0.923181405 0.332297783

0.494658925

0.504377662 0.637316929 0.091404273 0.209693364 0.192071871 0.694755686 0.919629046 0.115934959 0.276002537

1.9406436

0.74884244 0.866166929 0.452483345 0.734833867 0.637194856 2.310868705 0.731211458 0.000445032 0.315665174 0.489803834 0.00304179 0.413302564 0.71753913 0.197695588 0.472119274 0.43963136

IEA composite electricity/heat

factors (kgCO2/kWh)

0.9682265 0.726138

0.812045 0.486205 0.6932951 0.398464 0.7846682 0.436453 0.5889758 0.4388794 0.3285304

0.4813564

0.459235 0.6136518 0.0937565 0.2018896 0.1622356 0.7052286 0.885374 0.1144369 0.314782

-

0.6559169 0.848708 0.439963 0.6870654 0.4676805 0.5392671 0.7178061 0.0003984 0.2852407 0.4238569 0.0033067 0.392079 0.7065435 0.213515 0.4772342 0.4034043

Difference (gCO2/kWh)

0.36495 -0.04144

0.00857 0.03499 0.04701 0.01243 0.01144 0.00690 0.05495 0.48430 0.00377

0.01330

0.04514 0.02367 -0.00235 0.00780 0.02984 -0.01047 0.03426 0.00150 -0.03878

-

0.09293 0.01746 0.01252 0.04777 0.16951 1.77160 0.01341 0.00005 0.03042 0.06595 -0.00026 0.02122 0.01100 -0.01582 -0.00511 0.03623

Difference (%)

37.7% -5.7%

1.1% 7.2% 6.8% 3.1% 1.5% 1.6% 9.3% 110.3% 1.1%

2.8%

9.8% 3.9% -2.5% 3.9% 18.4% -1.5% 3.9% 1.3% -12.3%

-

14.2% 2.1% 2.8% 7.0% 36.2% 328.5% 1.9% 11.7% 10.7% 15.6% -8.0% 5.4% 1.6% -7.4% -1.1% 9.0%

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Non-OECD Europe Non-OECD Total Norway OECD Europe OECD North America OECD Pacific Oman Pakistan Panama Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland Portugal Qatar Romania Russian Federation Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Singapore Slovak Republic Slovenia South Africa South Asia Southeast Asia/ASEAN Spain Sri Lanka Sudan Sweden Switzerland Syrian Arab Republic Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand Togo Trinidad and Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan

Electricityspecific factors (kgCO2/kWh)

1.111009897 0.777401484 0.002240278 0.451706369 0.497137859 0.529481475 0.93649203 0.473378547 0.276797888

0 0.237721212 0.52673385 1.196125502 0.400151316 0.596345388 1.069422796 0.513180381 0.795591395

0.5982594 1.548567819 0.57904595 0.282995496 0.578399475 1.069026617 1.213800412 0.627076088 0.34287509 0.417247633 0.614906086 0.023033883 0.003177437 0.639109712 0.023245211 0.26675705 0.626742612 0.207239024 0.766677522 0.572169413 0.865664547 0.644672553

IEA composite electricity/heat

factors (kgCO2/kWh)

0.509238 0.5668028 0.005238 0.335223 0.487216 0.498293 0.8576931 0.4511194 0.2732275

0 0.2250121 0.4867668

0.65344 0.383544 0.533875 0.4166456 0.3255125 0.7541919 0.5625632 0.6708746 0.5310437 0.217154 0.3288321 0.8349481

0.325878 0.4204963 0.6090862 0.039939 0.027385 0.0306259 0.2421504 0.5291102 0.2064878 0.6867318 0.5220711 0.495279 0.7951471

Difference (gCO2/kWh)

0.60177 0.21060 -0.00300 0.11648 0.00992 0.03119 0.07880 0.02226 0.00357 0.00000 0.01271 0.03997 0.54269 0.01661 0.06247 0.65278 0.18767 0.04140 0.03570 0.87769 0.04800 0.06584 0.24957 0.23408

0.01700 -0.00325 0.00582 -0.01691 -0.02421 -0.00738 0.02461 0.09763 0.00075 0.07995 0.05010 0.37039 -0.15047

Difference (%)

118.2% 37.2% -57.2% 34.7% 2.0% 6.3% 9.2% 4.9% 1.3%

NA 5.6% 8.2% 83.1% 4.3% 11.7% 156.7% 57.7% 5.5% 6.3% 130.8% 9.0% 30.3% 75.9% 28.0%

5.2% -0.8% 1.0% -42.3% -88.4% -24.1% 10.2% 18.5% 0.4% 11.6% 9.6% 74.8% -18.9%

7

Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom United States Uruguay Uzbekistan Venezuela Vietnam World Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe

Electricityspecific factors (kgCO2/kWh)

0.56313293 0.938297499 0.508501975 0.547096737 0.303713979 0.567432849 0.208069719 0.466848028 0.623537453 0.644106104 0.003197305 0.600377947

IEA composite electricity/heat

factors (kgCO2/kWh)

0.3861146 0.8420557 0.486949 0.535031 0.3067745 0.4438443 0.2025534 0.4130283 0.5023264 0.6361625 0.0031282 0.6187319

Difference (gCO2/kWh)

0.17702 0.09624 0.02155 0.01207 -0.00306 0.12359 0.00552 0.05382 0.12121 0.00794 0.00007 -0.01835

Difference (%)

45.8% 11.4% 4.4% 2.3% -1.0% 27.8% 2.7% 13.0% 24.1% 1.2% 2.2% -3.0%

Discussion

As can be seen from Table 1 the difference between the electricity-specific factors and the composite electricity/heat factors varies by country, with very small differences for some countries and very large differences for others. This variation in the difference between the two factors is to be expected for a number of reasons. Firstly the types of fossil fuels used to generate electricity and those used to generate heat may be largely the same in some countries, and therefore the composite and electricity-specific factors will be similar5, but in other countries there may be large differences between the fuels and technologies used to generate electricity and heat, and in such cases the composite and electricity-specific factors will diverge.

A second reason why the difference between the composite and electricity-specific factors varies by country is that different countries have different levels of heat generation, and for some countries total emissions from heat generation will be too small to skew the composite emission factor whereas for other countries total emissions from heat generation may have a large impact on average emissions from electricity and heat generation. The former situation is the case for countries such as Cuba, Costa Rica, Haiti and Angola which have low or no main heat generation (IEA 2011b), and therefore the composite and electricity-specific factors are very close. In such cases the composite electricity/heat factors may be used as a good proxy for electricity-specific factors.

As noted earlier the composite and electricity-specific factors are expected to be different if a country has low carbon electricity generation but high carbon heat generation, or high carbon

5 In actual fact the circumstances in which the carbon intensity of electricity and heat will be similar are slightly more complicated than this due to the difference in the efficiency of electricity and heat generation. The heat generation would have to be more carbon intensive than the electricity generation by the same amount that the efficiency of the heat generation exceeds that of the electricity generation.

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