Major ElectricityMap update: Regional emissions data

[OVERKILL]

Historically, the ElectricityMap app has used IPCC emissions intensity data for their figures. This is of course not regional in nature and averages everything globally.

As we know, different power plants of the same type have different emissions. Lignite is more emissions intense than anthracite for example. CCGT's are lower emissions than OCGT's, a nuclear plant with a fully domestic supply chain is lower emissions than one that imports fuel from Russia.

So, they are making efforts to use localized data, where available, to properly represent the emissions in their charts.

The results? striking.

Germany is now hideous, and it was already bad:

In comparison, this is from before the update:

This impacts the US figures as well:

Canada is still using the IPCC figures, but hopefully we'll get some more local figures shortly. IPCC lifecycle for nuclear is 12gCO2/kWh, but CANDU is actually 3.2 (no enrichment, domestic uranium and fuel fab powered by nuclear/hydro).

You can explore the update in more detail on their blog:

Increasing the precision of our data using regional emission factors

Today, we’re launching a new improvement to Electricity Maps which will improve the precision of our carbon emission data. Learn more about regional emissions, and the methodology behind it, in this blog post:

www.electricitymaps.com

Or, if you just want to see the site:

Live 24/7 CO₂ emissions of electricity consumption

Electricity Maps is a live 24/7 visualization of where your electricity comes from and how much CO2 was emitted to produce it.

app.electricitymaps.com

 

[stormgol]

ontario, quebec, iceland, norway and sweden. the green brothers

 

[RoadDukie]

Thanks @OVERKILL
That's a lot of information to digest.

After first look, one thing that jumps out to me is that the scale on the two Germany charts tops out at 60 GW. While the scale on the Pacificorp (USA) chart tops at 5 GW. I'm still not sure if/how that affects the other values.

Very interesting. Looking forward to analyzing this deeper. Thanks again.

 

[stormgol]

poland😲

 

[Snagglefoot]

Don’t forget BC and Manitoba. They are both on the high end of hydro.

 

[OVERKILL]

Thanks @OVERKILL
That's a lot of information to digest.

After first look, one thing that jumps out to me is that the scale on the two Germany charts tops out at 60 GW. While the scale on the Pacificorp (USA) chart tops at 5 GW. I'm still not sure if/how that affects the other values.

Very interesting. Looking forward to analyzing this deeper. Thanks again.

It's relative, Germany obviously has more installed capacity than a single US region, but this is all intensity per kWh produced, so it doesn't matter how big or small the grid is.

 

[OVERKILL]

Don’t forget BC and Manitoba. They are both on the high end of hydro.

They need to be encouraged to provide public data so that they can be included.

 

[RoadDukie]

It's relative, Germany obviously has more installed capacity than a single US region, but this is all intensity per kWh produced, so it doesn't matter how big or small the grid is.

Makes total sense Overkill. Thank you.

My mind immediately goes into suspicion mode when I see two comparative charts with wildly different scales. 😀