Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

Choosing the Best Carbon Factor for the Job: Exploring Available Carbon Emissions Factors and the Impact of Factor Selection

Conference ·
OSTI ID:1891472
; ; ; ; ;
Over 600 local governments in the United States, including nearly half of the largest 100 cities, have enacted climate action plans that include carbon reduction goals and greenhouse gas inventories (Markolf et al. 2020). The magnitude of these goals ranges from modest reduction targets to carbon neutrality. None will be met without significant contributions from the buildings sector. Understanding how energy efficiency and building electrification impact greenhouse gas emissions requires local, time-sensitive, and forward-looking carbon emissions factors for electricity use in buildings. There are a variety of emissions factors currently available from various sources, including average emissions factors and historical short-run marginal emissions factors. Long-run marginal emissions factors and future-year short-run marginal emissions factors are also now available from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL's) Cambium data sets. In this paper, we describe the different carbon emissions factors available, including both conventional sources and newly available options. We discuss the types of analyses each emissions factor is best suited to support. Then, using residential energy efficiency and electrification load profiles, we demonstrate how different conclusions result from different choices of carbon emissions factors. For two grid regions, we explore takeaways of using current versus future-year emissions, short-run versus long-run, and levelized versus single-year values. We include a framework for selecting the best carbon emissions factor for the job.
Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Building Technologies Office (EE-5B); USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Strategic Analysis Team
DOE Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1891472
Report Number(s):
NREL/CP-5500-82241; MainId:83014; UUID:8bb1bdd9-7d52-4f00-85d6-8f6d4489bbe8; MainAdminID:67720
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Related Subjects

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
carbon emissions factors
long run marginal emissions