Lankao Geothermal Based Space Heating System

Audit Analysis

The Lankao Geothermal Space Heating project (VCS-4383) is a coal-displacing geothermal heating system in China with VVB-confirmed additionality, but it carries notable concerns: a project-specific baseline, a 0% leakage deduction justified only as 'deemed negligible,' and a large volume of material findings (17 CARs, 18 corrective actions) that point to significant initial documentation errors. The project delivered roughly 65% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the first monitoring period, which is conservative but suggests the lifetime estimate may have been optimistic.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠17 Corrective Action Requests and 18 corrective actions were raised during verification, including recalculation of the ex-ante ER value due to incorrect HSy values and correction of inconsistent parameter values — indicating substantial initial documentation errors
• ⚠Leakage deduction of 0% justified solely as 'deemed negligible' for a project displacing coal-based heating in Lankao County, with no quantified analysis of displaced coal potentially being used elsewhere
• ⚠Contradiction in total ERR figures: the PDD (Feb 2024) reports 785,080 tCO₂e while the validation report (Feb 2024) reports 67,637 tCO₂e — a 12× difference that, while likely reflecting lifetime vs. per-period scope, was not explicitly reconciled in the documents

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