Approach for Long-term Planning Accounting for Carbon Assessment (ALPACA)
| Funding mechanism | Network Innovation Allowance (NIA) |
|---|---|
| Duration | Jan 2022 - Mar 2023 |
| Project expenditure | £240.5k |
| Research area | Optimised Assets and Practices |
Objective(s)
This project will develop a framework/methodology and supporting tools for integration of whole life carbon management and measuring into standard DNO processes and procedures.
Problem(s)
The infrastructure Carbon Review showed that infrastructure is associated with over half of UK greenhouse gas emissions, 30% of which are directly attributed to the construction, operation and maintenance of infrastructure assets (emissions that infrastructure has direct control of). At the moment DNOs keep track of operational carbon, however, there is a scope for the industry to measure and reduce carbon impact across all of our business activities and target our reduction efforts on most carbon intensive activities/processes/equipment. Integration of a whole life carbon vision across all relevant business units will enable us as assets owners/managers to realise a full carbon reduction potential through a fully integrated value chain by involving designers, constructors and product/material suppliers.
There is currently no off-the-shelf solution to whole life carbon management available across the power distribution industry. Therefore this project will aim to develop a whole life carbon management (WLC) framework/methodology supported by the WLC measuring tool which will be trialled across National Grid business for the potential inclusion in the relevant business activities going forward.
Method(s)
The project will be delivered through a collection of four interlinked work packages:
Work Package 1: Literature Review and best practice capture
This work package will focus on identifying effective frameworks, methodologies and approaches to whole life carbon management across various infrastructure sectors that can be applicable as a basis in a DNO context. Special attention of the literature review will be on the approaches that can drive carbon reduction from DNOs design, construction, reinforcement and maintenance activities.
Work Package 2: Stakeholder Engagement
National Grid Electricity Distribution internal and external stakeholders will be consulted in order to build up a process map showing the key touch points for carbon management, with information on the relevant team involved, key activities, data availability, and the outputs requirements to support active whole-life carbon management.
Work Package 3: Guidance on embedding and integrating whole life carbon management and measuring across business processes and systems
Building on the findings from work package 2, work package 3 will draft a detailed guidance on how to integrate whole-life carbon management into typical DNO’s processes and systems, allowing teams and individuals across the business to monitor and report the carbon impacts of their activities so that they can proactively manage these impacts as they plan and develop projects. Some of the details to be captured are: users who need to be involved at each stage of the assessment; the activity data, datasets likely to be relevant, data gaps, the data flow over time, etc.
Work Package 4: Development of whole life Carbon measuring tool
The tool will be developed and trialled within a DNO context with an ultimate goal of incorporating proactive carbon management, enabling internal teams to use reliable carbon data to inform decision making in support of network decarbonisation.
Scope
Whole life carbon management is widely recognised as a good practice, however, there is currently no industry-wide approach that was tested to be easily scalable in a DNOs context. This project aims to generate carbon management framework and a set of tools to facilitate the integration of whole life carbon assessment into DNOs processes and procedures to drive carbon reduction agenda and ensure compliance with national and company-specific reduction targets.
Success Criteria
- Whole Life Carbon Management Framework/methodology for application in a power distribution sector is developed and verified.
- Sufficient guidance and methodology is developed for integrating of the framework into business as usual.
- Fully functioning whole life carbon measuring tool is developed and trialled.
Potential for New Learning
The outputs of this work will provide a detailed learning on how to integrate whole life carbon management into DNO activities. Whole life carbon measuring tool is expected to identify most carbon intensive activities that would allow the business to consider and implement targeted reduction measures.