GHG Project Typicals Database

Everyone talks about the costs of different climate change mitigation options and projects, yet much of the economic information in circulation today is potentially misleading. Even when people agree on an individual project's basic economics (e.g., its costs and revenues), the calculated economics of CO₂ mitigation from the project can vary dramatically based on:

Whether the costs are being expressed as "simple" or "levelized";

The expected crediting period;

The hurdle rate required to make a project economically viable;

Country-specific risk factors;

Fuel and electricity prices.

For example, most economics today are expressed as "simple costs," taking no account of the time period and pattern over which the reductions will be delivered. When time is accounted for, the "levelized cost" of a project can be several times the cost when calculated the "simple" way. It is this "levelized cost" that should form the basis for corporate decisionmaking about what projects to pursue in today's market.

TC+ES's Cli-Mit Project Typicals Database© allows users to specify a range of variables, including those mentioned above, to calculate the absolute and relative economics for more than 40 mitigation sectors. The Database can be used to estimate:

The "true" relative costs of "typical" mitigation projects in a wide range of mitigation sectors;

The "true" mitigation costs of different sectors, based on the risk factors present in individual countries;

How mitigation costs, both absolute and relative to each other, will change as coal, gas, and electricity prices change over time.

The Cli-Mit Project Typicals Database© can be leased from TC+ES; an update service is available.