Jbel Sendouq-Khalladi (“Khalladi”) wind farm project in Morocco (GS5073 CER to VER conversion)

Audit Analysis

The Khalladi wind farm is a straightforward renewable-energy avoidance project with no reversal risk, but it carries significant gaps in social safeguards (no FPIC, no grievance mechanism, no benefit-sharing documentation per the most recent verification report) and a project-specific baseline built on a 2010 grid emission factor that has not been reassessed. The verified ERR for the 2014–2018 monitoring period is only about 7.6% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation, indicating the ex-ante estimate was highly optimistic, while the verified-to-claimed ratio of roughly 58% and multiple cross-document contradictions in ERR figures and safeguards status raise data-reliability concerns.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Safeguards, grievance mechanism, and benefit-sharing are all reported as absent in the 2019 verification report, contradicting the 2018 report which stated they were present — a material gap for a Gold Standard project.
• ⚠Verified ERR (45,712 tCO₂e) is only ~7.6% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation (~600,000 tCO₂e) for the 4.2-year monitoring period, suggesting the ex-ante baseline was severely over-estimated.
• ⚠Grid emission factor of 0.4862 tCO₂/MWh is from 2010 and has not been updated; if the Moroccan grid has decarbonised since then, the baseline may be overstated.
• ⚠Additionality was confirmed at validation (2012) but the 2019 verification report records it as not re-verified by the VVB.
• ⚠Three corrective actions remain open (geographic coordinates format, commissioning-date discrepancy, monitoring-period end-date inconsistency).

Credit Vintages