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Method note · estimate

Production-based carbon intensity

What it measures

How much CO₂ each kilowatt-hour of electricity carries, weighted by which fuels generated it in that hour and counted where the power is produced.

Inputs

  • ENTSO-E actual generation per production type for the DE-LU bidding zone (Germany and Luxembourg, which share one wholesale price), hourly
  • Per-fuel lifecycle emission factors from the fifth assessment report of the IPCC (the UN's climate science panel), one fixed factor per fuel

Method and weighting

Carbon intensity here is production-based: each hour's figure counts only the electricity generated inside the bidding zone, so power carried in or out over the interconnectors leaves it unchanged.

Every fuel carries a lifecycle emission factor, a fixed weight from the IPCC's fifth assessment report that covers the fuel's whole life, from building the plant and extracting the fuel to burning it. The intensity of an hour is the generation-weighted mean of those factors: each fuel's output that hour is multiplied by its factor, the products are summed, and the sum is divided by the hour's total generation.

Pumped-storage discharge is left out of that sum on both sides because it carries energy generated earlier, held in storage until it is released. An hour with no positive generation reported anywhere is left out of the series entirely.

Window

The rolling 12 months to the last complete day, refreshed on the 1st and 15th of each month. The current window runs from to . Data last refreshed on .

Known limits

  • The lifecycle factors are medians for each fuel; lignite in particular runs above the coal median the table uses for it.
  • For Great Britain, the UK Regional view uses the consumption-based figure of NESO, Britain's grid operator, which counts the carbon carried by imported electricity, and says so on the page.

Used on

Sources: ENTSO-E, NESO. Each is described on the Data sources page.