Prony and Kafeate wind-farms, New Caledonia (300344)

Audit Analysis

A Gold Standard wind-farm project in New Caledonia with VVB-verified additionality and safeguards in place, but undermined by an extensive list of calculation errors, metering issues, and calibration gaps identified across multiple verification cycles. The most recent verification report leaves leakage justification unaddressed and reversal events unassessed, while the baseline method is inconsistently described across documents. The project delivered roughly 90% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the latest monitoring period, indicating modest under-delivery rather than over-crediting.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠The 2024 verification report lists leakage justification as 'not addressed' and reversal events as 'not addressed', representing a regression from the 2019 report which at least deemed leakage negligible
• ⚠Over 20 material findings in the 2024 verification report include incorrect net generation figures, wrong meter numbers, a 0.5% calibration correction for April–May 2021, and multiple emission-factor calculation errors — all closed but indicative of weak internal MRV controls
• ⚠Baseline method is described as 'project' in the 2024 verification report but 'jurisdictional' in the 2024 monitoring report, creating ambiguity about the actual baseline approach
• ⚠Grid emission factor of 0.91 tCO2/MWh is dated 2015 and has not been updated in the available documents, raising the risk that the displacement assumption is outdated

Credit Vintages