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

Use of Models and Facility-Level Data in Greenhouse Gas Inventories
6 Questions for discussion
This paper has raised a number of questions that would be useful to consider, particularly if more detailed guidance is
written by the IPCC about integrating ETS data into a GHG inventory
• Securing access to ETS data. What are suitable approaches to securing reliable access to ETS data, whilst
maintaining commercial confidentiality?
• Developments to improve usefulness of EUETS data within GHG inventory. EUETS data
management decisions to simplify the data allocation issues could be considered, such as:
• Harmonising activities. Installations could be allocated to a harmonised list of activities,
aligned with IPCC sectors.
• Harmonising fuel names. Operators could allocate fuels to a harmonised, limited list of fuel
types that can then be more easily / consistently be allocated to IPCC fuel types. This would
supplement, not replace, the existing ETS reporting.
o e.g. fuel use, NCVs and emissions are reported from fuels which cannot be easily
identified. This is a particular problems for petroleum-derived fuels and from nonstandard
fuels such as process gases, refinery off-gases, flared fuels etc where fuel
quality is expected to be variable. (i.e. non-refined, non-processed fuels, where the
specification of the fuel quality is not closely defined)
• Clarity of reporting. Improve disaggregation of activities to report emissions from specific
activities, and from the use of biomass.
o e.g. power stations – allocate emissions from fuel use (by fuel), from biomass and
for other sources such as flue gas desulphurisation
• More research to investigate EUETS data quality management is needed, for example, through crosssectoral,
cross-Member State fuel data analysis to identify outliers, system inconsistencies within a country,
between sectors or between countries. It is not appropriate to use all ETS data in a GHG inventory since some
of these data may be of lower quality that the data already in the GHG inventory. This raises the questions of
whether it is possible to devise guidance on the accuracy and / or uncertainty must be associated with data with
before these ETS data can be used in a GHG inventory?
• Would new IPCC guidance on “good practice” use of ETS data be appropriate?
• Guidance on how to integrate new ETS data into existing GHG inventories to minimise impacts on
time-series consistency.
• Best practice guidance on data quality checking, identification of outliers, resolution of activity data
discrepancies
• Best practice guidance on when to use EUETS data to either (i) change the national energy statistics
total, or (ii) change the sector allocation of the existing total national energy statistics.
• Preparing the guidance for future changes driven by a lower carbon economy. The current status may
not persist, e.g. the development of more regionally disaggregated electricity generation will mean
there will be challenges to track fuel use and fuel quality as countries may move to more to a smallerscale
lower-carbon generation infrastructure.
7 Concluding remarks
This analysis has demonstrated that emissions data given in the UK GHG inventory are often broadly consistent with
emissions data given in regulators’ inventories, in the CITL (reporting verified emissions from the EUETS), and in other
data sets. In some cases where there are differences, we are able to identify reasons why these differences exist. The
UK is making use of some detailed EUETS data in its inventory, such as carbon emission factors for fuels used in key
sources (coal and gas used in power stations) and for fuels whose composition is variable (some fuels used in refineries).
IPCC Expert Meeting Report 95 TFI