Greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions
RusHydro uses renewables in its operation. HPPs produce no greenhouse gas emissions.
Still, emissions of greenhouse gases by the facilities of RAO ES East Subgroup were calculated in accordance with Order No. 300 issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment of the Russian Federation on June 30, 2015, Guidelines for Calculation of Gross Carbon Dioxide Emissions by TPPs and Boilers (RD 153-34.0-02.318-2001), and data from the Carbon Fund. Greenhouse gas emissions were calculated per facility based on the fuel consumption of each facility.
In 2018, emissions of greenhouse gases went up 1.41% driven by higher power output at the facilities of RAO ES East Subgroup and an increase in reference fuel consumption.
|СО2 emissions, '000 tonnes||34,096.5||34,457.1||34,942.3||1.4|
|N2O emissions, '000 tonnes CO2-eq.||119.1||117.1||120.2||2.7|
|CH4 emissions, '000 tonnes CO2-eq.||14.4||13.9||14.6||5.0|
|natural gas combustion||9,936.0||10,101.5||10,147.9||0.5|
|fuel oil combustion||693.5||712.0||723.1||1.6|
|solid fuel combustion||23,600.4||23,774.6||24,206.1||1.8|
Intensity of greenhouse gas emissions by RAO ES East
The CO2-equivalent emission intensity is calculated as a ratio of total emissions (tonnes CO2-eq.) to electric power (mn kWh) and heat (‘000 Gcal) produced.
One of the key challenges accounted for by RusHydro in its updated Environmental Policy (approved by the Board of Directors on August 9, 2018) is the global climate change and need to adapt to global warming effects threatening human life and health, flora and fauna, and causing changes in long-standing hydrological and meteorological patterns. Low-carbon development is therefore a primary objective for RusHydro Group. Its Environmental Policy sets a number of 2025 low-carbon targets, including reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and emission intensity and expansion of low-carbon installed capacity. RusHydro Group plans to achieve a 6% decrease in its greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 as compared to 2015. The year 2015 was recommended by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation to be used as the base year in the greenhouse gas reduction roadmap for the Russian public sector companies. The intensity of СО2 emissions is set to decrease 7.7% in the electricity generation segment and 6.4% in the heat production segment.
The Expansion of Installed Low-Carbon Capacity target is planned to be achieved with the Comprehensive Modernization Program (Long-Term Development Program for 2012–2020 with an outlook until 2025) providing for retrofit of RusHydro’s generating facilities. RusHydro is also heavily engaged in renewable energy projects.
In particular, the Company builds smaller HPPs in Northern Caucasus. In November 2018, RusHydro commissioned a 900 kW wind power plant in the Arctic settlement of Tiksi in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia).
In 2018, measures were taken at the Company’s subsidiaries in the Far East to reduce air pollutant emissions:
- minor and major repairs at dust collecting equipment, aspiration bunkers and scrubbing towers to maintain the flue gas quality at the required level. Such measures were taken at Blagoveshchenskaya CHPP, Raychikhinskaya CHPP, Primorskaya GRES, Neryungrinskaya GRES, Artyomovskaya CHPP, Vladivostokskaya CHPP-2, Partizanskaya GRES, Amurskaya CHPP, Komsomolskaya CHPP-2, Mayskaya GRES, Khabarovskaya CHPP-1, Khabarovskaya CHPP-3, Urgalskaya boiler plant, and Arkagalinskaya GRES;
- rehabilitation of Khabarovskaya CHPP-1 and Khabarovskaya CHPP-3 to upgrade boilers and hot-water peaking boiler plant to feed on natural gas
Air pollutant emissions
Air pollution is monitored at all production facilities of RusHydro Group. In 2018, SOx emissions increased by 11% on the back of a higher power output at gas-fired thermal power plants.