24 MW Dummagudem Hydel project by SLS Power Corporation Limited

Audit Analysis

A 24 MW small hydro project in India validated under CDM ACM0002 v11 with a jurisdictional grid baseline (0.89 tCO2/MWh) and VVB-confirmed investment additionality. The validation process surfaced 19 material findings—many relating to additionality calculations and financial transparency—requiring corrections before approval, and two ongoing corrective actions remain. The project carries low inherent permanence risk as a hydro asset, but the absence of verified emission figures, FPIC documentation, and a grievance mechanism limits confidence in the overall credit quality.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠19 material findings in the validation report, including inadequate benchmark calculation, insufficient common-practice analysis, and non-transparent project cost presentation, all requiring correction before validation approval
• ⚠Two corrective actions remain open: monitoring auxiliary consumption/transmission losses (revisit additionality if below 3%) and monitoring book depreciation rate (revisit if Schedule XIV replaces CERC norms)
• ⚠No verified emission reduction figure found in the extracted record; only the lifetime claimed total of 116,772 tCO2e is available
• ⚠No FPIC or grievance mechanism documented in any available source
• ⚠Contradiction between validation report (2011) describing the baseline as project-specific and the monitoring report (2020) describing it as jurisdictional

Credit Vintages