CDP Climate Change 2022 Reporting Guidance

(C8.2a) Report your organization’s energy consumption totals (excluding feedstocks) in MWh.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select “Yes” to any of the activities listed in C8.2. A row will appear in this table for each energy-related activity selected in C8.2. The "Total energy consumption" row will always appear.

Change from last year

No change

Rationale

Given the importance of energy consumption in emissions accounting, this question attempts to provide transparency to data users on the consumption of energy by the organization. The question provides the opportunity for organizations to disclose their total energy consumption and distinguish renewable and non-renewable forms of energy.

Connection to other frameworks

SDG

Goal 7: Affordable and clean energy

Goal 12: Responsible consumption and production

Goal 13: Climate action

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Figures you provide should be for the reporting year only (as defined by your answer to C0.2).
• If you have reported a market-based Scope 2 figure in question C6.3, you should use the market-based approach to calculate the share of renewable energy consumed in this question. This should be based on the same data sources as your applied emission factors and should be consistent with the market-based Scope 2 emission factor hierarchy. For example, if you purchased Energy Attribute Certificates (EACs) to claim half of your electricity consumption as renewable, you will need to use the relevant data source(s) from the emission factor hierarchy (e.g. residual mix data) to work out the share of renewables in the remaining half.
• If you have only reported a location-based Scope 2 figure in question C6.3, you should use the location-based approach to calculate the share of renewable energy consumed in this question using the location-based Scope 2 emission factor hierarchy.
• If you do not consume an energy carrier, then you should enter zero (0) in the relevant field.
• This table is for gross energy consumption data only. You should not provide net consumption nor deduct for energy produced or exported from the organizational boundary. Because feedstock fuels are excluded from this question, this approach should not lead to double counting.
• You should enter all energy data in Mega-Watt-hours (MWh). If your raw data is in energy units other than MWh, such as Giga-Joules (GJ) or British Thermal Units (Btu), then you should convert to MWh. For e.g., 1 Giga-Joule (GJ) = 0.277778 MWh, so if your data is in GJ then should multiply your data by 0.277778. If your data is in million Btu, then you need to multiply your data by 0.29307.
• Conversion factors from other energy units are available from a variety of online calculation tools, including from IEA and OnlineConversion.com, or from conversion tables such as those in EPA AP-42 (Annex A).
• If your raw data is in volume units, e.g. cubic feet or gallons, or in mass units, e.g. kilograms (kg) or pounds (lb), then you should convert to energy units using factors for fuel heating/calorific values. These are available from numerous sources, some of which are listed below:

- IPCC Guidelines for National GHG Inventories (Volume 2, Table 1.2, p1.18-1.19)
- EPA AP-42 (Annex A)
- IEA Statistics Manual (Annex 3, p180-183)
- API Compendium (Table 3-8, p3.20-3.21)

• Further guidance on unit conversion is available in the following Technical Note: “Conversion of fuel data to MWh”.

Activity (column 1)

• This column is driven by the activities for which you selected ‘Yes’ in response to C8.2.

Consumption of fuel (excluding feedstock)

• All fuel consumed for energy purposes inside the organizational boundary should be included, regardless of whether the fuel was purchased or produced by the organization. If a fuel is consumed as a feedstock for the production of another fuel, then the feedstock should not be included, but combustion of the produced fuel should be included. Ultimately, if a fuel is combusted, i.e. consumed for energy purposes and not as a feedstock, then it should be included (see ‘Explanation of terms’ for more detail).
• Consumption of renewable fuels should be accounted for here. This includes biomass (solid and liquid biofuels and biogas), biomass-derived wastes and renewably derived hydrogen.
• If you do not have exact consumption data, you may alternatively estimate your company’s consumption by reviewing fuel and energy purchasing orders.

Consumption of purchased or acquired electricity, heat, steam, cooling

• If your raw data for steam is in physical units, e.g. pounds (lb) or kilograms (kg), then you should convert to energy units. The energy content of steam varies with temperature and pressure. Organizations can refer to The Climate Registry’s General Reporting Protocol, Chapter 15, section 15.2, step 1, which explains how to calculate the energy content of steam.
• Cooling is frequently purchased in refrigeration-ton hours; 1 ton-hour is equal to 12,000 Btu, which is equal to 0.003516 MWh.

Consumption of self-generated non-fuel renewable energy

• If your organization produces renewable energy that is not based on fuel (such as solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, marine), then any consumption of this energy should be entered here.
• Consumption of renewable fuels (such as solid and liquid biofuels and biogas) should be excluded because these should be accounted for in the row “Consumption of fuel (excluding feedstock)”.
• All forms of non-fuel renewable energy - electricity, heat, steam, or cooling – shall be included.

Total energy consumption

• Enter the total energy consumption by your organization in this row, alongside total energy from renewable sources and non-renewable sources.
• The sum of renewable and non-renewable energy consumption should equal the total MWh entered in the last column.
• The data entered in each column of this row should also equal the sum of all the above rows (if the above rows have been fully disclosed for).
• If you do not disclose data for specific energy carriers in the rows above, but you are able to enter the total energy consumed by your organization, then you should do so.

Heating value (column 2)

• This column is only applicable to the consumption of fuels because it is a measure of combustion energy.
• Energy from fuel combustion can be measured by the higher heating value (HHV) or lower heating value (LHV) of the combusted fuel.
• Higher heating value (HHV) is also known as gross calorific value (GCV), and lower heating value (LHV) is also known as net calorific value (NCV). Typically, LHV/HHV ratio is 0.95 for solid and liquid hydrocarbon fuels, such as coal and oil, and 0.9 for gaseous hydrocarbon fuels, such as natural gas.
• Fuel energy data in HHV is typically used in the United States and Canada, whereas LHV is more commonly the unit used in other countries and by international bodies. If you do not know the unit applicable to your raw data, you may wish to infer it based on the location from which the data is sourced, i.e. if the fuel related data is sourced from outside of the United States and Canada, then it is likely that LHV is applicable.

MWh from renewable sources (column 3)

• Renewable energy is energy taken from sources that are inexhaustible such as wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, biomass and marine (tidal and wave energy).
• Waste energy should not be included if it is derived from fossil fuels.
• Hydrogen should not be included if it is derived from fossil fuels.
• Blended fuels deriving from both renewable and non-renewable sources should be split by the proportion contained from each source. For municipal waste and refuse-derived fuel, only the fraction of the fuel that is derived from biomass can be included as renewable energy, when calculating renewable energy consumption totals. Further explanations of municipal waste and a glossary of fuel definitions is provided in the CDP Technical Note: “Fuel Definitions”.

MWh from non-renewable sources (column 4)

• All energy not identified as deriving from renewable sources should be entered, e.g. coal, oil, natural gas, etc.
• Direct consumption of nuclear fuel should not be included, as this is covered in more detail in questions for electric utilities. Consumption of purchased or acquired electricity, steam, heat and/or cooling from nuclear sources, however, should be included.

Total (renewable + non-renewable) MWh (column 5)

• Total MWh is equal to the sum of MWh from renewable sources (column 3) and MWh from non-renewable sources (column 4).If you have entered data in column 3 and column 4, then you should ensure that the sum of this data is equal to the data in column 5.

Explanation of terms

• Renewable energy: CDP follows the definition of renewable energy given in the GHG Protocol, i.e. “energy taken from sources that are inexhaustible, e.g. wind, water, solar, geothermal energy and biofuels.”
• Excluding feedstocks: Fuels consumed as feedstocks are fuels that are not combusted for energy purposes. For example, naphtha and ethane are feedstocks that may be converted into petrochemical products such as ethylene, and should not be included. The steel industry is a special case because coke and fuel injectants consumed at the blast furnace serve as feedstocks and a source of energy. These fuels are considered feedstocks and should not be counted. However, all fuels consumed for energy, i.e. combusted, that are derived from fuel feedstocks, e.g. blast furnace gas, coke oven gas, and smelting reduction gas, should be counted. Companies that consume fuel as feedstocks will have the opportunity to disclose these fuels in sector specific questions.
• Heating Value: Lower heating value (LHV) and Higher heating value (HHV), also known as net calorific value (NCV) and gross calorific value (GCV) respectively, are different measures of heat energy released from fuel combustion. Figures measured in HHV are larger because HHV includes the latent heat of water vaporization from combustion, whereas LHV does not. The difference between LHV and HHV is related to the fuel’s hydrogen content.
• Purchased or acquired electricity, steam, heat, cooling: Specific information on these energy carriers can be found in section 5.3.1 and Appendix A of the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance. The terms ‘purchased’ and ‘acquired’ are used when your organization has received the energy from a third party. This rules out energy that is sourced from within the organizational boundary. It should be noted that purchased or acquired heat does not include the heat content, or calorific value, of fuels that are purchased or acquired by the organization. This is accounted for at the point of fuel consumption, which falls inside the Scope 1 boundary. You should also be aware that steam, heat or cooling received via direct line as ‘waste’ from a third party’s industrial processes, should still be accounted for if it is consumed.