Major ElectricityMap update: Regional emissions data

OVERKILL

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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:
Screen Shot 2022-11-19 at 2.51.12 PM.jpg


In comparison, this is from before the update:
Screen Shot 2022-03-08 at 8.02.38 PM.jpg


This impacts the US figures as well:
Screen Shot 2022-11-18 at 8.25.43 PM.jpg


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:

Or, if you just want to see the site:
 
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.
 
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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.
 
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. 😀
 
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