Determination Report

PDD Hidroelectrica

Verification Report 2009-2012

The Hidroelectrica Hydropower Development Portfolio Track 1 JI Project aims at developing nine new hydropower plants, which will be located in different hydrographic basins in Romania. The project will start in 2009 with the construction of the first plants and will be completed by 2011. Eventually, upon project completion, 278.4 MW hydropower capacity will have been installed, which will increase electricity generation by 1532.35 GWh during the project’s crediting lifetime.
For this project, the baseline scenario for determining the CO2 emissions that would have occurred in the absence of the project, will be determined on an ex post basis, thereby using verified data for gridconnected Romanian power production installations under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS).
The advantage of this methodology is that the baseline will be based on verified data, instead of a counterfactual, hypothetical scenario as in the case of ex ante baseline determination. Using the baseline emission factor of 833 gCO2/kWh and given that the project will have zero CO2 emissions, the project will reduce the emissions of 1,276,448 tonnes CO2. These CO2 emissions would otherwise have occurred because the power generated by this project would have been produced by thermal power plants based on fossil fuels. The calculation of the expected emission reductions is conservative as it is based on a baseline emission value on the lower end and an electricity production estimate that assumes lower than average water availability and a staged, slower than usual reaching of full load operations after starting the new units. In case the project generates more electricity and/or the actual ex-post EU ETS based baseline emission values are higher, the Romanian State would benefit by having an even larger distance from its Kyoto target.