CDP Climate Change 2022 Reporting Guidance

(C-EU8.2d) For your electric utility activities, provide a breakdown of your total power plant capacity, generation, and related emissions during the reporting year by source.

Question dependencies

This question only appears if you select “Yes” to “Generation of electricity, heat, steam, or cooling” in C8.2.

Change from last year

Modified question

Rationale

Climate change is a strategic issue for the electric utilities sector, as power generation is the single largest emitter of CO₂, accounting for around 25% of global emissions. These emissions, mainly carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, are mostly by-products of fossil fuels combustion. Therefore, CDP asks this question to provide data users with more transparency regarding electric utilities power generation activities and associated absolute emissions and emissions intensity.

Response options

Please complete the following table:

Requested content

General

• Report nameplate capacity by primary power generation sources owned or controlled by the company that fall within the reporting boundary that you selected in response to question C0.5.
• Based on that capacity, please report generation, absolute Scope 1 emissions and Scope 1 emissions intensity.
• You should report your preferred measure (gross or net) of generation. Though CDP encourages disclosure of both, reporting one measure is sufficient.
• Gross electricity generation is the total amount of electric energy produced by generating units and measured at the generating terminal.
• Net electricity generation is the amount of gross generation less the electrical energy consumed at the generating station(s) for station service or auxiliaries.
• Respond with a 0 (zero) value if you do not have operations using that power source to generate electricity.
• Please refer to the CDP Technical note on Biofuels for guidance on biomass/biofuel sustainability.
• Biomass may be combusted on its own or co-fired with other fuels. Please provide aggregate data for the biomass that you combust on its own and biomass that you co-combust with other fuel sources. If you report information in the “Sustainable biomass” row, provide the criteria used to classify the biomass as sustainable (e.g. certification) in the “Comment” column (column 7).
• Waste can include tire-derived fuels and other refuse-derived fuels. When reporting in category "Waste (non-biomass)", only report for the non-biomass fraction. The biomass fraction should be reported under either biomass option.
• Emissions intensity is provided in metric tons CO₂e per GWh, which is equivalent to kgCO₂e per MWh, or grams CO₂e per kWh. For thermal generation from fossil fuels, emissions intensity typically falls inside the range 300-1200 metric tons CO₂e per GWh.
• Hydropower does not include pumped storage which CDP regards as a form of managing or storing energy rather than primary generation.
• "Other renewable” and “Other non-renewable” are aggregations of any other renewable and non-renewable energy generation technologies you use that are not listed (e.g. renewably derived hydrogen or hydrogen derived from fossil fuels, respectively).
• If parts of your organizations power plant capacity is comprised of multiple mixed small-scale generation technologies that are difficult to report by specific power generation technology, then these can be aggregated by renewable and non-renewable sources. The aggregated renewable sources figure can be reported in the row "Other renewable" and the aggregated non-renewable sources figure can be reported in the row "Other non-renewable". Please outline the approach used to determine this figure and the small-scale technologies included in the Comment column.
• If fully disclosed, the figures you report in the bottom row ‘Total’ of columns 2-5 should equal the sum of all above rows.

Comment (column 7) (optional)

• Any further information about the data provided may be entered here.
• If you report information in the “Sustainable biomass” row, provide the criteria used to classify the biomass as sustainable (e.g. certification).

Explanation of terms

• Renewable energy: CDP follows the definition of renewable energy given in the GHG Protocol: “Energy taken from sources that are inexhaustible, e.g. wind, water, solar, geothermal energy and biofuels.”
• Biomass: any organic matter, i.e. biological material, available on a renewable basis. Includes feedstock derived from animals or plants, such as wood and agricultural crops, and organic waste from municipal and industrial sources. Biomass fuels should be sustainably sourced and certified where possible, and include:
  • Solid biofuels - solid fuels derived from biomass. Includes feedstock derived from animals or plants, such as wood and agricultural crops, and organic waste from municipal and industrial sources.
  • Biogas - a mixture of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) used as fuel and produced by bacterial degradation of organic matter or through gasification of biomass.
  • Liquid biofuels – liquid fuels derived from biomass such as ethanol and biodiesel.