Newfoundland CO2 Intensity

[Hurc2000]

Newfoundland CO2 intensity is much less that the default 461 shown for the NL-NS delivery. The allocation is hydro power, Labrador is totally hydro power. It includes Churchill Falls and Muskrat Falls. The Island is typically 75%-100% hydro and wind powered, especially since there are always deliveries from Labrador to supply the Maritime Link flow to Nova Scotia.

[jarek]

I know you know it, but just linking to the main Newfoundland issue for the record https://github.com/electricitymaps/electricitymaps-contrib/issues/2541

As a cite for the 75% figure, https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles/provincial-territorial-energy-profiles-newfoundland-labrador.html (footer says data is from 2021) says:

The 490 MW oil-fired Holyrood Thermal Generating Station currently generates between 15% and 25% of the island of Newfoundland’s electricity needs annually. Holyrood was once scheduled for shutdown in 2021 after the completion of Muskrat Falls but delays to the project have extended Holyrood’s operating life.

(others please note the difference between "island of Newfoundland" and "Newfoundland and Labrador", and "electricity needs" and "electricity generation" which will not be the same now that Maritime Link is working)

[Hurc2000]

With the LIL delivering, even impeded, the Holyrood output is more of a backup often only at minimum output of 2 or 1 units, as per http://www.pub.nl.ca/applications/NLH2018ReliabilityAdequacy/reports/From%20NLH%20-%20Near-Term%20Reliability%20Report%20-%20November%20%202023%20-%202023-11-15.PDF Section 5.0, PDF page 38. This backed up by PUC energy supply reports at http://www.pub.nl.ca/indexreportspages/energysupply.php for November 2023, 83.9 GWh or an hourly average of 116 MW, and December 2023, 95.2 GWh or 128 MW hourly vs. average Island demand >1000 MW. They GWh are found in Section 4.0, PDF page 8, of those reports. We are looking at 10-15% winter, lower in the off-seasons right down to 0%. Then also add the Maritime Link flow out to the Island demand and that brings Holyrood's contribution to <10%.

[Hurc2000]

This will be my final message on how ridiculous the default Newfoundland CO2 intensity looks on Electricity Maps.

Note that island fossil generation is almost always <200 MW. Lower outside of winter.

[VIKTORVAV99]

This will be my final message on how ridiculous the default Newfoundland CO2 intensity looks on Electricity Maps.

Note that island fossil generation is almost always <200 MW. Lower outside of winter.

If you feel it's that wrong you are free to calculate a more accurate one and either share it here or submit a PR for it, this is an open source project after all.

The teams currently have other priorities and projects they are working on that that we feel will bring more benefit to our users and will therefore not be able to work on this for the moment at the very least.

[jarek]

@Hurc2000 what is the second image from, the screenshot of charts with @NLElectricity? Is it a web page someone is running?

[Hurc2000]

An X bot account using the new data provided by NLH as well as the Maritime Link data provided by NSP.

https://nlhydro.com/about-us/our-electricity-system/supply-and-demand/

Note that QC counts Churchill Falls delivery as internal generation but it is a contracted resource from Labrador.

[jarek]

Ah thanks! I think Muskrat Falls and Churchill Falls real-time generation on that page is relatively new, we will take a look at integrating that

[jarek]

Alright so I don't think the real-time Muskrat Falls and Churchill Falls figures help us. We would need to know one of:

• real-time transfer on Labrador-Island Link (then we could calculate Island generation)
• real-time transfer from Labrador to Quebec (then we could calculate LIL transfer on assumption that local Labrador use is dwarfed by exports)

Without these, we don't know in real time how much energy is being generated on Newfoundland vs how much comes from Labrador.

However, I took a stab at estimating the Newfoundland intensity based on yearly data for 2023.

From the above link http://www.pub.nl.ca/indexreportspages/energysupply.php I viewed the December 2023 report http://www.pub.nl.ca/indexreports/20152019energysupply/From%20NLH%20-%20Energy%20Supply%20Monthly%20Report%20-%20December%202023%20-%20%202024-01-17.PDF and used the year-to-date 2023 data in Appendix B, which I summarize as the following:

source	amount (GWh)	assumed fuel	assumed CO2eq intensity	relative contribution	CO2eq
hydro generation	5167.6		24	58.0%	13.920
thermal generation	720.5	fuel oil (some is gas)	650	8.1%	52.563
wind generation	172.3		11	1.9%	0.213
Labrador imports	2764.9	vastly hydro	24	31.0%	7.448
CBPP (Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited)	84.4	biomass	230	0.9%	2.179
total	8909.7				76.3227

The total given in Appendix B is 8912 GWh which is a tiny bit more than 8909.7 in this table, this is because I omitted some smaller sources that make up well less than 1% of the overall supply.

So if we're good with a yearly average, then for 2023 the figure for exports from Newfoundland could be 76 g CO2eq/kWh.

and BTW, the same procedure can be used to get a yearly average of 90.74 g CO2eq/kWh for 2022, 97.46 for 2021, and so on back to 2018

@VIKTORVAV99 is this methodology good enough in this case?

[VIKTORVAV99]

Alright so I don't think the real-time Muskrat Falls and Churchill Falls figures help us. We would need to know one of:

• real-time transfer on Labrador-Island Link (then we could calculate Island generation)
• real-time transfer from Labrador to Quebec (then we could calculate LIL transfer on assumption that local Labrador use is dwarfed by exports)

Without these, we don't know in real time how much energy is being generated on Newfoundland vs how much comes from Labrador.

However, I took a stab at estimating the Newfoundland intensity based on yearly data for 2023.

From the above link http://www.pub.nl.ca/indexreportspages/energysupply.php I viewed the December 2023 report http://www.pub.nl.ca/indexreports/20152019energysupply/From%20NLH%20-%20Energy%20Supply%20Monthly%20Report%20-%20December%202023%20-%20%202024-01-17.PDF and used the year-to-date 2023 data in Appendix B, which I summarize as the following:

source amount (GWh) assumed fuel assumed CO2eq intensity relative contribution CO2eq hydro generation 5167.6   24 58.0% 13.920 thermal generation 720.5 fuel oil (some is gas) 650 8.1% 52.563 wind generation 172.3   11 1.9% 0.213 Labrador imports 2764.9 vastly hydro 24 31.0% 7.448 CBPP (Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited) 84.4 biomass 230 0.9% 2.179 total  8909.7       76.3227 The total given in Appendix B is 8912 GWh which is a tiny bit more than 8909.7 in this table, this is because I omitted some smaller sources that make up well less than 1% of the overall supply.

So if we're good with a yearly average, then for 2023 the figure for exports from Newfoundland could be 76 g CO2eq/kWh.

and BTW, the same procedure can be used to get a yearly average of 90.74 g CO2eq/kWh for 2022, 97.46 for 2021, and so on back to 2018

@VIKTORVAV99 is this methodology good enough in this case?

Yes that looks in line with what we have used for other zones where we have overridden the unknown carbon intensity so it should be fine to set it as the default fallback carbon intensity as well (I think).

But instead of adding the calculated co2eq I think we need to add the fallback origin mix like this instead:

fallbackZoneMixes:
  powerOriginRatios:
    - _source: Electricity Maps, 2017 average
      datetime: '2017-01-01'
      value:
        battery discharge: 0.0
        biomass: 0.021373633024453487
        coal: 0.5493432852047883
        gas: 0.1924140577731704
        geothermal: 0.0
        hydro: 0.06988900636723731
        hydro discharge: 0.0
        nuclear: 0.018875996842319567
        oil: 0.0
        solar: 0.0
        unknown: 0.0006453411459460368
        wind: 0.14704217765687924

Since we don't actually have any production data to override the co2 intensity value of.