Balsas Renewable Energy Project

Audit Analysis

The Balsas Renewable Energy Project is a Gold Standard biomass energy project in Brazil with a confirmed barrier additionality test and a project-specific fNRB of 0.8683 derived from a survey. However, the absence of a buffer pool, unaddressed reversal risk, six corrective action requests from verification, and multiple inter-document contradictions (leakage justification, additionality test type, fNRB method, FPIC status) introduce moderate uncertainty. The verified ERR of 19,376 tCO₂e for the monitoring period is consistent with the pro-rata expectation from the PDD's lifetime estimate, indicating no apparent over-crediting.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Six corrective action requests were raised during verification, including unresolved questions on the crediting period start date, missing original data for Qrenbiomass, and incomplete fNRB reference documentation
• ⚠Reversal risk is explicitly not addressed in the verification report, and no buffer pool percentage is stated, leaving permanence unquantified
• ⚠The verification report describes leakage as 'quantified' while the monitoring report characterises it as 'deemed negligible' — a contradiction that weakens confidence in the 0% leakage deduction
• ⚠The additionality test type is reported as a barrier test in the verification report but as an investment test in the monitoring report, creating ambiguity about which test was actually applied

Credit Vintages