What changed since 2012: The DEFRA GHG conversion factors guideline update 2013

Today the Department for Food, Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) published its 2013 updates to the GHG conversion factors guideline. These updates allow us to calculate our GHG emissions even more accurately and create a better understanding what the effect of our activities is on climate change. In order to determine the actual changes compared to last years GHG conversion factors a comparative study has been performed. Even though most of changes to the conversion factors have been rather small some noticeable larger changes are worth mentioning. Moreover, some additions have been made to the list of GHG emission factors (EF) compared to the previous year and a few errors have been found. These will be addressed in the following.

Changes
For many of the GHG emission factors small changes have occurred. Although it is important to acknowledge these small changes, since these will affect the outcome of your GHG calculation, this section will focus on those GHG emission factors that changed substantially. Noteworthy, changes larger than 10% compared to last years emission factors only occur for CH4, N20 and Indirect emission factors. Although changes are made to the CO2 emissions these have always been smaller than 10%. The addressed changes will be presented per category as used by Defra. Fuel Use: Several changes have been found for fuel related emissions. Obvious are the increasing total indirect GHG for CNG and Natural Gas. Since these now include the import of LNG the total indirect GHG has increased with almost 47% which results in a 5.7% and 3.8% increase in total GHG emissions factors respectively. Others fuel types like Aviation Spirit, Fuel Oil, and Other Petroleum Gas all had an increase in average CH4 emission factor in NAEI for the last inventory year. However, since the CO2 emissions and/or N2O emissions slightly changed as well these changes did not result in big changes for their total GHG emissions with the exception of Other Petroleum Gas having a decreased GHG emission factor of 2.9% For both Recycled Fuel Oil and Gas Oil we notice a reduction in CH4 and N2O emissions. These are especially clear for the Recycled fuel Oil, with a 13.85% decrease in total GHG emissions as a result from a correction and a change in methodology since the CH4 emission factors for power stations have been applied for the 2013 update. Total GHG emissions factors for Gas Oil dropped with 1.81%.

Purchased Electricity: A remarkable change for electricity consumption is that 2013 emission factors are based on in-year factors instead of the previously used 5 year grid rolling average implemented only a few years ago to avoid peaks in electricity consumption. Furthermore, because of a change in methodology autogenerators are now also included in the emission factors. However, looking at the GHG emissions of electricity consumption, that is the generated electricity plus electricity losses, it can be noticed that up until 2006 there was a decrease of about 3%, mainly due to the decrease in CO2 and N2O emission factors. After 2006 this decrease becomes smaller and from 2009 there is a slight increase in the total GHG emission factor. For heat and steam a more drastic decrease in CH4 emissions is noticed while there is a decrease in N2O emissions as well. In particular for the biofuels and domestic refuse for which a 30% decrease in CH4 is concluded for the last three years. Additionally, the total indirect GHG emission factors heat and steam have increased with more than 9%, resulting in an increase of about 1.6% for the total GHG emission factor since 2001. Moreover, Defra incorporated District Heating which replaces the previously used combined calculation. Passenger Transport: For LPG and CNG the GHG emission factors changed. While there is a 2.58% decrease for LPG, CNGs GHG emission factor increases with 5.73%. This is mainly due to the total indirect GHG emissions that now also include LNG imports. When looking at the vehicles it can be noticed that for most cars there has been a decrease in total GHG emission factors due to changes in the road transport vehicle fleet compared to NAEI 2010, reflecting a newer and cleaner vehicle fleet. However, since CNG GHG emission factors now include the LNG imports, these CNG engined vehicles emit more GHG. Though medium and large petrol hybrid cars had been included in the 2012 GHG conversion factors Small petrol hybrid cars have not. For the 2013 update DEFRA added small petrol hybrid cars as well. A correction has been made for vehicle kilometres travelled with a regular taxi opposed to last years calculation increasing the indirect GHG emissions by 60 .8% resulting in a total GHG emission increase of 5.02%. The GHG emission factor for passenger transport by rail decreased for the international train by 14.24% due to an updated NAEI rail model. While the light rail and tram and the London underground both reduced their GHG emission factors by 9.28% and 9.75% respectively due to a lower emission per passenger kilometre. Freight Transport: For vans and light commercial vehicles a 24% and 30% drop in CH4 and N2O has been concluded most likely due to the improved Euro Standard fleet. For the same reason a

reduction in CH4 and N2O can be found for articulate HGVs. While CNG engined vehicles show a rise in GHG emission factors due to the before mentioned inclusion of LNG imports. Rail freights GHG emission factor was reduced by 9.44% due to an updated NAEI rail model. Bioenergy & Water: Due to a change in methodology for calculating the carbon intensity the GHG emission factors for bioethanol increased with 12.31% while, for the same reason, the GHG emissions for biodiesel decreased with 15.39%. As mentioned before, the total GHG emissions for CNG increased as they now include LNG imports. General changes: Another change compared to last years conversion factors is the exclusion of the following annexes. The information these annexes provide will be moved to the Defra company reporting guidance. Annex 2: CHP Annex 4: Industrial Processes Annex 8: Refrigeration + Aircon Annex 13: Supply Chain

Errors
In the draft version of the Defra Conversion Factors Guideline 2013 an error in the calculations was found for the International Electricity Emission Factors. The 2013 emission factors were compared to the 2012 emission factors of the country following on the list. This error has been communicated to Defra. However, due to document protection Ecometrica was not able to make the right calculations to determine the changes in GHG emission factors for the International Electricity Emission Factors. Furthermore, small calculation errors have been found in annex 6: Passenger Transport of the Defra conversion factors guideline 2013. These factors are shown in table 1 with the corrected factors added. These corrected factors should be used to make a more accurate GHG calculation.
Annex 6 6 Aspect Petrol Diesel (avg biofuel blend) Total Direct GHG 2013 2.2000 kgCO2e/unit 2.6000 kgCO2e/unit Corrected Total Direct GHG 2013 2.2144 kgCO2e/unit 2.6008 kgCO2e/unit

Table 1: corrected calculations

Conclusions
While GHG Emission Factors have changed for some aspects the most substantial changes have been made to the CH4, N2O and Indirect GHG emission factors. Though these contribute to the total GHG emissions they do not always result in substantial changes to the total GHG emission factor. However, the changes for CNG and Natural Gas use and CNG engined vehicles as a result of including LNG import has been most noticeable. Moreover,

the total GHG emission factors for Recycled Fuel Oil, Biodiesel and Bioethanol were reduced significantly. Besides, the public transportation sector, trains but also trams and metro, reduced their GHG emission factors due to an updated NAEI rail model and increased amount of passengers per kilometre. Moreover, Defras choice to depart from the 5 year rolling grid and adapt the 1 in -year GHG emission factors again is remarkable. Especially since this is leading to more peak differences as energy prices tend to fluctuate, once the reason for Defra to install the 5 year rolling grid. Nonetheless, with these updated GHG emission factors a more accurate GHG analysis can be made. Hence, creating a better understanding which activities contribute the most to climate change and where action should be taken to reduce these negative impacts.

References
DEFRA (2013) GHG Conversion Factors 2013 for company reporting (draft version) DEFRA (2012) GHG Conversion Factors 2012 for company reporting, http://www.defra. gov.uk/publications/2012/05/30/pb13773-2012-ghg-conversion/