12 MW hydropower plant in Bhandardara in Maharashtra, India.

Audit Analysis

A 12 MW CDM hydropower project in Maharashtra, India, with a jurisdictional grid-emission-factor baseline and a combined additionality test, but undermined by a cluster of ten corrective-action requests and one compliance-level finding in the verification record, the absence of formal FPIC, and contradictory leakage and baseline characterisations across documents. The project delivered roughly 287 % of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the monitored period, suggesting a conservative baseline, yet the documentation quality and safeguard gaps limit confidence in the overall credit quality.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Formal FPIC was not conducted (validation report, 2016) despite the project's location in a populated area of Maharashtra; grievance mechanism is not stated in any available document.
• ⚠Ten corrective-action requests (CAR#1–CAR#10) and one compliance-level finding (CL#1: missing UNFCCC renewal notification) were raised in the verification record, indicating material PDD and procedural deficiencies.
• ⚠Leakage justification is contradictory: the 2016 validation report states leakage was 'deemed negligible' while the 2021 monitoring report records it as 'not addressed', leaving the 0 % deduction without a consistent evidentiary basis.
• ⚠Grid emission factor of 0.689 tCO₂/MWh is drawn from the 2014 CEA database (CAR#3 notes the outdated v9 database was used), raising the question of whether the baseline reflects current grid conditions.

Credit Vintages