Nepal Biogas Support Program-CPA 10: 10,589 digesters

Audit Analysis

A large-scale Nepal biogas programme (10,589 household digesters) under Gold Standard with VVB-confirmed additionality and a quantified 5% leakage deduction, but undermined by severe inconsistencies in emission-reduction figures across documents, a 100% usage-rate assumption contradicted by the VVB's own 89% figure, an 82% operational rate, and a low-confidence extraction record riddled with corrective actions. The project's claim-safety profile is weak: the verified ER for the 2024 monitoring period is roughly ten times the pro-rata share of the lifetime ex-ante estimate, a discrepancy that cannot be reconciled without further data.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Verified ER of 381,686 tCO₂e for the 2024 monitoring period is approximately 9.9× the pro-rata expectation of ~38,731 tCO₂e derived from the 193,655 tCO₂e lifetime ex-ante estimate over a 5-year crediting period, indicating a major over-crediting risk or a data-basis error.
• ⚠Usage rate assumed at 100% in the PDD while the VVB's validation report (Feb 2020) records 89%; the 2024 verification report notes only 82.12% of surveyed digesters were operational, suggesting the 100% assumption is not supported by field data.
• ⚠No physical on-site inspection was conducted for the 2024 verification due to COVID-19 restrictions; alternative means were used, weakening the evidentiary basis for the verified ER.
• ⚠Multiple unresolved or late-closed corrective actions across verification cycles, including missing SDG calculation spreadsheets, inconsistent digester counts (10,589 vs 10,590), missing baseline scenario descriptions, and missing NCVbiomass monitoring details.
• ⚠FNRB method is reported as 'national default' in the 2024 verification report but as 'local field' in the 2020 monitoring report, creating uncertainty about which emission-factor basis underpins the ER calculation.

Credit Vintages