A Practical Method for Calculating Indirect Carbon Emissions of Electricity Users in Large Power Grid

The accurate measurement methods for carbon emissions are critical in both incentivizing consumers towards energy conservation and emission reduction, as well as ensuring fairness in carbon emissions trading. The indirect carbon emissions are generated from user’s electricity consumption. The existing indirect carbon emission calculation method assumes that the carbon emissions per unit of electricity are the same at any nodes and any time in the power grid. Carbon flow calculation method could bridge this gap, however, it still need improvement when applying to large power grid. This paper proposed a practical indirect carbon emission calculation method by parallel computing the divided power grid, thereby significantly reducing the computational pressure. Furthermore, an effective Thévenin equivalent fitting technique is adopted to lessen the computational complexity in the transmission network. By clustering typical scenarios, the annual equivalent carbon emission intensity can be calculated for any node in the power grid. These calculated carbon emission factor can serve as substitutions for the traditional carbon emission factors. The case study proves this method for carbon emission calculation manages to strike a balance between computational complexity and acknowledging the spatio-temporal characteristics in carbon emissions.