Waste Management PoA in India- Biogas for thermal applications- VPA 5

Audit Analysis

This Gold Standard biogas-for-thermal project in India has verified additionality and no reversal events, but is undermined by three material findings (data extrapolation, a seven-month calibration gap, and a monitoring-plan deviation), eighteen corrective actions, and contradictory leakage justifications across documents. The project-specific modeled baseline and 0% leakage deduction, combined with the absence of FNRB, LCA, and feedstock-sustainability data, leave meaningful gaps in the environmental-integrity case.

Project Description

Red Flags

• ⚠Extrapolation of monitoring data from an 8.5 TPD unit to a 2.5 TPD unit was used for several parameters, a methodological shortcut flagged as a material finding in the verification report
• ⚠Temperature and pressure gauge calibration was delayed from 10 Dec 2023 to 05 Jul 2024 (~7 months), during which monitoring data reliability is questionable
• ⚠Leakage justification is contradictory: the verification report (Mar 2024) states 'quantified' while the monitoring report (Feb 2025) states 'deemed negligible', yet the deduction is 0% in both
• ⚠Eighteen corrective actions were required, including errors in methodology nomenclature, CDM tool version numbers, calculated emission values, and missing monitoring parameters
• ⚠Crediting-period start date differs between the PDD (18 Mar 2019) and the verification report (21 Mar 2022), and the verification report lists no end date

Credit Vintages Exhausted