Use of Models and Facility-Level Data in Greenhouse Gas Inventories

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Use of Models and Facility-Level Data in Greenhouse Gas Inventories Summary The Australian national inventory is in the process of transitioning from the use of tier 2 methods in which representative country-specific emission factors are applied in the emission calculations for all facilities within a sector to the use of a set of tier 3 methods which utilises newly available information on facility-specific emission factors. The new information has been derived from the recent introduction of a mandatory emissions reporting system (the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting system – (NGERs)). The implementation of the NGER system involved all major companies in Australia and has constituted a substantial allocation of resources and effort by private operators towards emissions measurement in Australia. The new information is yet to be incorporated into the national inventory. Guidance on the use of facility or plant-specific information in national inventories is included in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines, which address the use of tier 3 methods for the Energy, IP and Waste sectors. However, the Guidelines do not assume that all plant-specific information will be used in an inventory as guidance is also provided on the use of plant-specific information as a QC tool to test the reasonableness of tier 2 national emission factors. Given these two broad scenarios, some interpretation of the Guidelines is required in the consideration of how to best use the new plant-specific information in the national inventory. With future Australian inventories in mind, a decision tool has been developed to provide a framework for a consistent, coherent use of facility-specific information across all targeted sectors of the Australian inventory. Given the nature of the IPCC guidance in this area, and the provision for the use of expert judgements for many decisions, IPCC workshops and conferences may have a useful role to perform in assisting inventory compilers and other experts in developing their understanding of how to improve national inventories through the use of plant-specific data. Australia’s national inventory’s use of plant-specific tier 3 methods Australia’s national inventory currently uses mainly tier 2 methods for energy, industrial processes and waste. For any source, the tier 2 methods commonly apply a representative country-specific factor to the national population of facilities that generate the emissions for the source. Two exceptions are fuels consumed for the purpose of electricity production and fugitive emissions from underground coal mines where a tier 3 method is already in place (these two sources constitute around 50% of NGER emissions). The national inventory is in the process of transitioning from the use of tier 2 methods to the use of a set of tier 3 methods which utilise newly available information on facility-specific data (mainly emission factors based on carbon content of fuels). The adoption of tier 3 methods is especially valuable for fuels where the carbon content varies appreciably across the economy – this is particularly the case for coal but also natural gas. Tier 3 methods are less important for relatively homogenous fuels like petroleum based products. National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting System (NGERs) The catalyst for the transition to tier 3 methods has been the implementation of the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act 2007. The Act provides for mandatory reporting of emissions (and energy) data by all companies that breach certain thresholds and represents a significant enhancement if Australia’s national inventory systems. The first reporting period under the NGER Act related to the Australian financial year 2008-09 while the first reports submitted by companies were received in October 2009. Consequently, given these timeframes, the data received under NGERs is yet to be incorporated into an Australian inventory submitted under the UNFCCC. The features of the NGER reporting system include: IPCC Expert Meeting Report 100 TFI
Use of Models and Facility-Level Data in Greenhouse Gas Inventories • broad coverage of emissions sources, including IPCC sources energy (fuel combustion), energy (fugitive), industrial processes and waste; • a relatively low reporting thresholds that relates to facilities at 25kt of emissions (including scope 2 emissions) and for companies at 50kt of emissions; • like the EU ETS and the US mandatory GHG reporting rule, reporters are able to choose between a number of methods in certain circumstances and in particular, reporters may: o use own measurements of carbon content based on the application of Australian and international standards ; or o use country-specific default emission factors; or o undertake direct monitoring of emissions; • integration of the facility methods with the national inventory - the default factors used are country-specific factors taken directly from the national inventory; • mandatory use of higher order emission estimation methods for the electricity generation, underground coal mines and PFC emissions from aluminium smelters; and • strong compliance provisions exist with powers of audit provided for the Regulator while significant penalties exist for breaches. More detail is provided in the Appendix. As with any inventory, the decision to invest in enhanced use of measurement data required a balance to be struck between the costs and benefits of the additional measurement effort. In practice, in Australia, direct monitoring of emissions only occurs in underground coal mines. For fuel combustion and, in particular, fuel combustion for electricity generation, measurement of the carbon content of the fuel is normally undertaken for commercial or existing regulatory reasons. The provision for reporters to be able to choose their estimation method reflected in part international practice but also recognition that the costs of measurement were uncertain for many sources. The interpretation of how to use data collected given this provision in the national inventory constitutes the principal discussion point in this paper. Nonetheless, the first year of implementation of NGERs provoked a massive investment in emissions measurement activity across the economy and the data collected represents a significant enhancement of our understanding of the driving forces behind actual emissions estimates in Australia. The operation of this provision could be considered temporary in nature as it is intended for the system to gradually move to more comprehensive use of higher order emissions estimation methods over time. What new information does the reported NGERs data contain? Data received under NGERs Considerable facility-specific data has been received under NGERs for the carbon content of black coal, brown coal, natural gas, coal seam methane fuel combustion. Smaller samples were collected for other fuels. In particular, in the first reporting year under NGERs over 120 facilities reported the consumption of black coal with associated emissions of over 131 Mt of CO 2. Thirty-one of these facilities reported using methods 2 or 3 accounting for around 124 Mt of CO 2. The majority of these facilities are electricity generators who are required to use method 2, 3 or 4 under NGER S. Eighty-nine facilities reported the consumption of black coal using method 1. This represented only 7.3 Mt of CO 2 (less than 6% of reported emissions from this fuel). The majority of these emissions are reported by the 16 facilities who reported greater than 1 PJ of coal consumption (around 100,000 tonnes of CO 2 emissions). Most method 1 coal reporters consume significantly less coal: some reported less than 10 tonnes of consumption. Similarly, data on facility-specific emission factors representing just under 100% of emissions from brown coal was obtained. Analysis of the collected data generally showed strong agreement with existing tier 2 parameters. For example, for black coal, the average emission factor for the data collected from facilities accounting for over 90% of emissions from black coal (other than that used to produce coke) was 90.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide per gigajoule of black coal. The mean of the NGERs sample was not significantly different to the NGERs default emission factor of 88.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide per gigajoule of black coal. For brown coal, the average emission factor of this group of NGER reporters was 92.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide per gigajoule of brown coal. The NGER default emission factor was 92.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide per gigajoule of brown coal. IPCC Expert Meeting Report 101 TFI
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Use of Models and Facility-Level Data in Greenhouse Gas Inventories

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