Tepekisla Dam & Hydropower Plant Project

Audit Analysis

The Tepekisla hydropower project has a solid additionality foundation (VVB-confirmed investment test) and a jurisdictional baseline recently reassessed in 2025, but suffers from a 0% buffer pool, unaddressed non-permanence risk, and a pattern of under-delivery (~60% of pro-rata expectation) driven by precipitation variability. Multiple documentation gaps and a high volume of corrective actions (22 CARs/CLs) during verification indicate a project that required significant remediation before credits could be issued.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Non-permanence risk explicitly not assessed by the project proponent and 0% buffer pool applied, leaving no safety margin against potential reversal (e.g., dam decommissioning or grid decarbonisation).
• ⚠Verified ERRs (214,834 tCO2e) represent only ~60% of the pro-rata ex-ante expectation (~360,791 tCO2e) for the 3.25-year monitoring period, indicating the lifetime estimate of 1,110,126 tCO2e was optimistic and the project is weather-sensitive.
• ⚠FPIC status is contradictory: the 2024 verification report confirms FPIC was conducted, while the 2025 validation report records it as not conducted — a material safeguard gap that is unresolved.
• ⚠22 corrective action requests and clarification requests were raised during verification, including missing grievance redress procedure, incomplete PD sections, and unexplained ERR spikes, suggesting the initial documentation was substantially deficient.

Credit Vintages