Blog and Labs

7 Apr 2011

CRC Energy Supplies

After an introduction to the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, this post should give you an outline of the different types of energy supplies covered by the CRC scheme.

There are 29 energy sources covered in the CRC scheme and it is important that organisations keep a careful record of any consumption from these sources.

In the CRC, energy sources are split into core energy supplies and residual energy supplies. 27 of the 29 energy sources are residual supplies; these must be counted, but not necessarily always declared:

CRC Electricity Meters:

Electricity and Gas in the CRC can be either core or residual supplies, depending on the type of supply and meter associated with that supply.

A core electricity supply is a supply measured by a meter which is one of the following:

settled half hourly meter
non-settled half hourly meter
a non-domestic meter
a dynamic supply

You are able to distinguish the type of supply by identifying the meter profile type; half hourly meters (HHM) are profile "00":

AMR meters can be read remotely and capture data on at least a half-hourly basis, while non-domestic meters are generally profile types 05-08 (05, 06, 07 and 08).

Most other types of electricity supplies are classed as residual energy supplies:

CRC Gas Meters:

In terms of Gas, there are three types of supply that are considered core gas supplies:

Daily Read Meter
An hourly meter (remotely read AMR meter)
A large gas point meter

A large gas point meter is a non-remotely read (AMR or daily read) meter with a supply greater than 73,200 kWh per annum. Most other meters will be non-daily read ≤ 73,200 kWh per annum; these meters are classed as residual supplies.

Here's an example of these meters available in our ECM software:

As you can see from the CRC dashboard within ECM, all relevant emissions are routed to either core or residual energy supply. The percentage gives you an easy indication of how much carbon you have to declare in your CRC footprint or annual report:

If you would like to find out some more information about how ECM can help you comply with the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, get in touch! You can also follow us on twitter for CRC updates.

More detailed information about the rules and regulations of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme can be found on the Enivironent Agency's website.

30 Mar 2011

GHG Accounting in ECM

Before embarking on our journey to build Enterprise Carbon and Energy Management software, we decided that to build an enterprise solution, it would have to cater for as many greenhouse gas accounting, calculation and reporting frameworks as possible, in order for organisations to meet the highest number of legislative and international standards.

Standards that our ECM system currently supports include the GHG Protocol, Carbon Disclosure Project, ISO 14064, and the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme. ECM supports all these standards simultaneously, and certain standards such as the CRC can be simply turned off.

The highest level standard that had to be considered is the Greenhouse Gas Protocol; a global accounting framework established and maintained by the World Resources Institute and World Business Council For Sustainable Development.

The GHG protocol serves as the backbone of most global greenhouse gas reporting standards by setting out clearly defined boundaries, or “scopes”.

In ECM, we break the inputs and reporting into the three GHG protocol scopes:

Scope 1 includes all an organisation’s direct GHG emissions; vehicles owned or leased by the organisation, directly consumed fuels and gas fired boilers that are usually metered.

Scope 2 includes indirect emissions though electricity consumption. These emissions are indirect as the actually generation is usually carried out by a third-party, but most of the result of that generation is consumed by the organisation through metered electricity.

Scope 3 includes indirect emissions and essentially accounts for everything else that an organisation consumes and in an ideal world will include the whole chain of suppliers, distributors and other products or services an organisation consumes.

(download)

As you can see from the first image in this gallery, total GHG (all scopes) 75.69 tonnes CO2, and as you cycle through the images you can see the amount of greenhouse gasses associated with each scope.

ECM also provides you with a view of scope emissions on a monthly basis:

In terms of other greenhouse gasses, our Enterprise Carbon Management solution also accounts for Methane (ch4) and Nitrous Oxide (N2O) where the data is available:

If you would like to find our more about ECM, or simply want some guidance with carbon calcualtion; don't hesitate to get in touch!

10 Mar 2011

CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, an Overview

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, or CRCEES is a compulsory scheme to cut carbon dioxide and improve the energy efficiency of large private and public sector organisations in the UK.

The CRC framework is designed to cut carbon emissions by up to 11.6 million tonnes per year by charging a carbon levy to nearly 3,000 organisations that are responsible for roughly 10 % of the UK's carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

The UK’s most energy intensive industries are already covered by the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU-ETS) and there are cross-overs between the two systems.

The scheme was first announced in a 2007 white paper from the now defunct Department of Trade and Industry as the Carbon Reduction Commitment and renamed to the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme in April 2010.

The CRC was initially designed to aid HM Government's initial commitment to reduce UK carbon emissions by 60% by 2050, compared with 1990 levels, however in October 2008 this commitment was revised to an 80% reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.

The CRC scheme is given legal powers by the Climate Change Act, 2008; the world’s first long-term legally binding framework to tackle the dangers of climate change, while full details are given in the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme Order 2010.

Participation

All organisations that were supplied with electricity from a settled half-hourly meter in 2008 qualify for the scheme, however, only those organisations that had at least one half-hourly meter and consumed over 6,000 MWh (megawatt hours) of electricity supplied on the half-hourly market are required to participate in the CRC scheme. Additionally, in order to lead by example, all UK central government departments and devolved administrations must participate in the CRC as “mandated participants” no matter how much electricity they consume.

Administration of the scheme is carried out by the Environment Agency who handles registration, reporting and carbon credit transactions via the online CRC registry. Participants can be audited by one of the UK’s regional environment agencies.

CRC Timeline

The CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRCEES) is split into phases. There is a qualification year prior to each phase and participants must submit a footprint report at the start of each phase of the CRC. For the remainder of the phase, organisations must submit a less detailed annual report and buy and sell carbon allowances each year. A performance league table will be published each year with organisations ranked using various coefficients, including the “early action metric”. The CRC reporting year runs from April 1st to 31st March, and organisations must submit reports to the CRC registry by the last working day of July each year.

In July 2012 participating organisations will surrender carbon credits for the first time, priced at £12 per tonne of CO2. These allowances were initially to be recycled and paid back to the best performing organisations, however in October 2010 the Government revised this and will now retain all revenue from participants. This effectively makes the CRC scheme a straight carbon tax on energy emissions.

CRC timeline supplied by the Department of Energy and Climate Change:

CRC timeline supplied by the Environment Agency:

How can Carbon Calculated help?

Our Enterprise Carbon Management software covers all the rules and regulations of the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRCEES), allowing you to automatically capture, manage and report your organisation's CRC emissions.

For more information contact us and follow us on twitter for CRC updates.

29 Sep 2010

New Carbon Calculated Browser

A new version of the browser has been released; we now handle displaying the source information ourselves via a content management system;

We have also updated the browser to indicate a link to our QA applications; As we are a firm believer in transparent data and calculations; anyone can verify and question the results that are gained from our platform, a true open source data provider for carbon calculations!!…. Yes thats what we are!

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CRC Energy Supplies

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CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, an Overview

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