GS1354 Vietnam Small Hydro PoA - Thoong Cot 2 Hydropower Project

Audit Analysis

A small hydro avoidance project under Gold Standard with well-confirmed additionality (investment test, IRR below benchmark, common practice analysis) and no reversal events. However, the absence of a verified emissions reduction figure, a project-specific baseline, a 0% leakage deduction, and multiple cross-document contradictions (largely between the 2012 original validation and the 2020 re-validation) limit confidence in the claimed 93,814 tCO₂e lifetime estimate.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠No verified ERR figure found in any available document — the claimed 93,814 tCO₂e (PDD, 2020) cannot be cross-checked against a monitoring-period verification result.
• ⚠34 Corrective Action Requests were raised during verification, including inconsistencies in the grid emission factor and missing reservoir-area monitoring parameters (all closed, but indicative of initial documentation gaps).
• ⚠Leakage deduction is 0% despite the 2020 validation describing the justification as 'quantified' — the quantification apparently yielded zero, but the underlying calculation is not visible in the extracted record.
• ⚠Grid emission factor changed from 0.5408 (PDD, 2014) to 0.92975 (validation, 2020), a 72% increase that materially affects the claimed ERR; the basis for the update is not transparently documented.

Credit Vintages