Coal generation hits 2-year high, as rising demand drives emissions increase

pitt&sherry

Emissions from all three of the major sources – electricity generation, petroleum fuels and natural gas – are now increasing. While growing emissions from electricity generation continue to dominate the overall outcome, growth in emissions from petroleum appears to be accelerating and emissions from other uses of natural gas appear also to have stopped falling and, from February to March, recorded a small increase.

Over the nine months from June 2014 to March 2014, total annual emissions increased by 4.6 Mt CO2-e, equivalent to 1.6 per cent. Of this total, just under 4.3 Mt CO2-e occurred through electricity generation changes and just under 1.8Mt CO2-e through emissions from petroleum product use. This increase of over 6 Mt CO2-e was offset by a fall in annual emissions from consumption of natural gas, excluding gas used for electricity generation, of over 1.2 MtCO2-e up to February. As noted earlier this fall in gas emissions was reversed in March.

The patterns of NEM generation (Figure 7), NEM generation mix (Figure 8) and state by state demand (Figure 9) for the year to May 2015 are all a continuation of the trends reported in the last few issues of CEDEX Electricity Update. Figure 7 shows that ever since the steady fall in demand began, at the beginning of 2011, changes in emissions have moved in step with changes in the share of coal fired generation.

Annualised emissions in the year to April 2015 were 5.2 Mt CO2-e, equivalent to about 3.3 per cent, higher than in the year to June 2014. The annualised emissions intensity of NEM electricity again increased slightly. The share of coal in total sent out NEM generation increased to 75.3 per cent, the highest level since January 2013. The contribution of coal to emissions is reinforced by the fact that, for the third successive month, total demand for electricity in the NEM increased, albeit only a little (Figure 9).

Figure 8 shows that brown coal generators took all of the increase, and more. The very small increase in black coal generation and the increase in non-hydro renewables were together less than the combined total of falls in both gas and hydro generation (Figure 8). The steady fall in gas generation outside Queensland is particularly striking; in the year to May 2015 gas generation accounted for 23 per cent of total generation in Queensland, but only 8 per cent in the rest of the NEM.

This is an edited extract from the CEDEX Carbon Emissions Index report for June 2015, by pitt&sherry. Reproduced with permission