Renewable heating and cooling for industrial applications: guidance for carbon accounting

A significant amount of the final energy demand of the manufacturing industry is in providing heating and cooling to processes and buildings. Renewable heating and cooling (RHC) technologies are one way to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the generation of this heating and cooling demand. Yet whereas carbon accounting rules for the use of renewable electricity are generally well-defined and widely accepted, this is not the case for RHC technologies. In the new report “Renewable Heating and Cooling for Industrial Applications: Guidance for Carbon Accounting”, Navigant has investigated options for a standardized approach to track and report emissions from renewable heating and cooling. The report was commissioned by the Renewable Thermal Collaborative (RTC) with support from Mars Incorporated. The report is the first landscape analysis to assess the many existing methodologies used to calculate emissions impacts of six thermal energy project types and recommends a primary methodology for each.