Case Studies
GASTEC at CRE (GaC)
A small/medium engineering company has an agreement with DEFRA to undertake a reduction in its carbon dioxide emissions. If it can prove to DEFRA that it has achieved the target reduction, they will receive up to an 80% reduction of the Climate Change Levy. This is a tax that is now added to all energy bills to industry by the energy suppliers.
The verification process involved the company demonstrating that they keep well-documented records of their energy utilisation, meter reading, production output etc, and have an energy efficiency plan in place. After initial examination of the data, c:sense followed up with an on-site audit of the records. c:sense also had to be satisfied that the company had followed the DEFRA rules when applying for a reduction in its Climate Change Levy.
The final stage was the Verification Opinion, where c:sense provided a statement of opinion as to whether the emissions data had been formally verified against the DEFRA rules and the requirements of BS EN 45011.
EU ETS – Combustion EmissionsAn international manufacturing company in S W England has a scheduled combustion activity falling within the scope of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The factory has five gas fired boilers with oil back up, providing space heating and process steam. The thermal capacity is ~40 MW and, in a typical year, emissions are ~ 20,000 tonnes of CO2.
The company was obliged to have its baseline emissions data for the period 1998 – 2003 verified by an accredited, independent body. c:sense was selected to carry out this work because of its technical expertise in understanding the combustion processes involved.
The company provided an evidence pack of data to c:sense which included detailed information concerning the gas and oil used in each of the 6 baseline years. According to the rules set by DEFRA, c:sense had to undertake a detailed evaluation of the CO2 emissions for 2002 to determine whether the emissions reported by the operator were accurate to within a 5% uncertainty. Emissions for the other 5 years were subject to a “sense check” whereby c:sense had to verify that the emissions for each year were within 10% of the expected value.
The detailed review undertaken by c:sense involved analysis of the evidence pack, site visit to corroborate information and resolve uncertainties and preparation of a Verification Opinion which the operator then had to submit to DEFRA.
EU ETS – Process Emissionsc:sense verification Completes Complex Carbon Emissions
c:sense verification (a trading division of GASTEC at CRE Ltd, in Cheltenham) has just completed the carbon emissions verification of Monckton Coke and Chemical Co Limited, of Barnsley. The verification of the company (which provides over 175,000 tonnes of high quality coke per year to the industrial and domestic markets) was a complex task due to the number of carbon bearing streams involved. The verification was carried out as a requirement of the UK’s National Allocation Plan for the European Emissions Trading Scheme [EU-ETS], which has required over 1200 UK companies to have their carbon emissions verified. Successful verification will enable those companies to buy and sell carbon permits over coming years.
c:sense verification benefits from over 50 years experience of carbonisation, gasification and combustion and was able to verify the Monkton approach to the project. This employed a blend of accounting and engineering principles, supported by c:sense’s considerable experience of the “hot and dirty end” of plant operation, especially with regard to instrumentation. c:sense verification staff, in particular, John Tucker and Lesley Thomas, worked through every aspect of the plant, starting and finishing with weigh-bridge receipts. The validity of these was checked through a spreadsheet of the company’s carbon balance.
Monckton’s Environmental Manager, Malcolm Jepson, said “with a process as complex as ours, it was essential that our appointed verifiers had first class technical abilities in order to appreciate some of the process related nuances. We felt that in GASTEC at CRE Ltd, those qualities were well established and, indeed, their vast technical experience helped tremendously with what could otherwise have been a difficult task. After all, this is not a simple energy in Vs emissions out exercise as some might think.”
This type of initial baseline activity was described by the UK Government as being “light touch”; in annual verifications (from January 2005), Government expects verifiers to be more pro-active in seeking methods by which companies can improve the accuracy of their emissions figures. This is expected to raise the technical skill requirement of verifiers.
In these times of increased concern over carbon emissions, companies are beginning to realise the need to close the carbon balances on their plant, and ensure their numbers are accurate. In future, the accuracy of such numbers can be expected to significantly affect a company’s bottom line, with the possibility of organisations changing hands / merging etc in order to maximise value from their carbon emission portfolios. In future, the numbers associated with carbon emissions will need to be validated under due diligence with just as much import as the debtors’ ledger.
EU ETS Group VerificationAn energy management company based in the North of England provides installation and management of CHP units to a range of small, independent sites such as paper mills and horticultural growers, situated around the UK.
In order to confirm its emissions allocation in the EU ETS, each site was required to have its CO2 emissions verified over the baseline period 1998 to 2003. c:sense provided a cost-effective route to verification, by treating the sites as a Group under the DEFRA guidance for baseline verification, with the energy management company as the Group Co-ordinator.
Although the energy use and CO2 emissions were verified for each site, full verification of the energy data and audit of data by site visits were carried out on a selection of the sites only, as allowed by the DEFRA guidance, thus keeping costs to a minimum.
A Verification Opinion was then provided for each site, which were then forwarded to DEFRA by the Group Co-ordinator.
