Proyecto Hidroeléctrico Dario Valencia Samper

Audit Analysis

The Darío Valencia Samper hydroelectric project is a 20-year avoidance project in Colombia with VVB-confirmed additionality and a jurisdictional baseline, but it is undermined by eight material findings (including a PDD spreadsheet error and a missing signed safeguards statement), inconsistent safeguards documentation across verification reports, and a grid emission factor drawn from 2018. The project delivered roughly 73% of its pro-rata ex-ante expectation for the elapsed monitoring period, which is conservative and reduces over-crediting risk.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Eight material findings in the verification report, including missing turbine serial numbers, a transformer serial-number mismatch, and the omission of year 2039 from the PDD baseline emissions spreadsheet (corrected post-verification).
• ⚠Safeguards documentation is internally inconsistent: one verification report (2024-12-22) records safeguards as not mentioned, while an earlier one (2024-12-03) records them as mentioned; the signed Cercarbono Safeguards Statement was missing from the evidence folder.
• ⚠Grid emission factor of 0.381 tCO2e/kWh is drawn from 2018 data, making it approximately six years old at the time of the 2024 verification.
• ⚠Additionality is confirmed by the VVB but the specific test type (investment, regulatory, or barrier) is not stated in any available document.

Credit Vintages