CERTEL – Cooperativa Regional de Eletrificação Teutônia Ltda - Small Hydropower Plants

Audit Analysis

A CDM small-hydropower project in Brazil with a solid combined additionality test confirmed by RINA Services and a jurisdictional grid-based baseline. The project significantly under-delivered relative to its ex-ante estimate (approximately 30% of claimed credits), which is conservative for claim safety, but a notable discrepancy in the grid emission factor between the PDD and an appendix document introduces uncertainty into the credit calculation. Four corrective action requests were raised during verification but deemed immaterial by Brazilian regulators.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Grid emission factor differs by ~75% between the PDD (0.2654 tCO2/MWh) and an appendix document (0.460 tCO2/MWh); the basis for the credit calculation is unclear
• ⚠Verified emissions reductions (43,794 tCO2e) are only ~30% of the ex-ante estimate (143,827 tCO2e) over the same 7-year period, raising questions about the accuracy of the original PDD assumptions
• ⚠Financial additionality analysis used data from a 2001 reference plant rather than the actual decision year for each plant (CAR 2 in the verification report)

Credit Vintages

No issuances recorded on the registry.