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In Chile a monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) tool has been implemented to quantify the contribution that small- and large-scale renewable energy projects make to mitigating greenhouse gases.

To quantify the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions achieved by renewable energy projects, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and Chile’s Ministry of Energy jointly developed and implemented an MRV tool as part of the country’s Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action (NAMA) Support Project for Self-Supply Renewable Energy. The Chilean Ministry of the Environment also backed the development of this tool.

Methodology

Chile’s renewable energies MRV tool is a bottom-up system, which means it estimates the individual emissions reductions of each renewable energy project identified. The tool is applied in two ways: one approach covers small-scale renewable projects for self-supply and the other large-scale projects connected to transmission lines.

The first of these approaches looks at the electric generation and thermal generation of renewable energies intended for self-supply at the local level and quantifies the GHG emissions that will be avoided during the useful life (i.e. a minimum of 20 years) of the renewable energy projects in question. The renewable energy technologies considered in this approach are photovoltaic solar, thermal solar, wind power, hydropower, geothermal heat pumps, biogas and biomass, including cogeneration.

The second approach needed to be developed because of the high participation of renewable energies in Chile’s energy grid. To better evaluate the emissions mitigated by these renewable energies, an adapted version of the MRV system is used to quantify the reduction of emissions by large-scale renewable projects, specifically those that generate power using photovoltaic solar, concentrated solar, wind power or hydropower technologies.

Quantification of installations

With the MRV system, it was possible to measure the GHG emissions reductions of a specific set of projects, namely self-supply renewable energy schemes co-financed by public institutions awarded between 2012 and 2017 and financed by seven public institution programmes. It was also possible to estimate 100% of the emissions reductions for 142 renewable energy projects connected to the electrical grid up to the year 2018 and for 143 small distributed generator projects, which correspond to photovoltaic plants of up to 9 MW. In total, the MRV system has been applied to some 6,000 renewable energy installations.

Chile’s Ministry of Energy is now working to make other public institutions more aware of the MRV system and the need for quality information.

To find out more about this MRV tool, please contact the Information Management Unit of the Ministry’s Sustainable Energies Division at @email.