Combining greenhouse gas accounting and energy performance indicators to improve energy-related carbon emissions reporting

• Ano de defesa: 2023
• Autor(a) principal: Gallo, Alexandre de Barros
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: avaliação de desempenho energético; Contabilidade de emissões de GEE; energy models; energy performance evaluation; EnPI; GHG emission accounting; GHG emission reporting; IDE; modelagem energética; normalização; reporte de emissões de GEE; standardization
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/106/106133/tde-16062023-182310/

Climate change is one of the most significant sustainability challenges of our times. Improvements in GHG emissions reporting can increase credibility in GHG emission reduction claims, which is fundamental for combating climate change and promoting carbon neutrality. This thesiss main objective is to improve energy-related GHG emission reporting, methodologically and through standardization, by combining GHG emission accounting and energy performance evaluation with indicators, considering their underlying strengths and challenges. Two systematized reviews are executed. The first one highlighted that one of the challenges in energy-related GHG emissions accounting was related to energy use representation. One possible solution approach identified was incorporating energy performance evaluation with indicators. The second identified that, under energy performance evaluation, adequate comprehension of EnPIs energy models and EnPIs reporting types is essential to increase awareness of EnPIs capacities and limitations in achieving an effective energy performance representation. Considering these fundamentals, this thesis proposal combines energy-related GHG emission accounting and energy performance evaluation with indicators to overcome identified barriers and improve energy-related GHG emission reporting. The proposed method aimed to improve those estimations by adopting activity data that adequately represent energy consumption and using suitable comparison baselines. An EnPI value in a given reporting type fulfills the activity data need, while an EnPI energy model is a suitable baseline for comparing activity data. A case study in the petroleum refining sector is developed to apply the proposed combination of methods. The proposed method produces more consistent results than other simplified approaches. Finally, from a standardization perspective, alignment opportunities are outlined in a broader combination of the two processes (energy performance evaluation with indicators with energy-related GHG emission accounting) in terms of guidance, including adequate activity data and a suitable baseline. Implementing these opportunities could follow different paths, from informative annexes in standards covering these topics to a guidance standard.