Non-GHG Metric

Saudi Arabia's Greenhouse Gas Crediting & Offsetting Mechanism

When the GHG reductions are measured in units other than CO2 or CO2eq, these are known as non-GHG metrics. GCOM accommodates the types of activities relevant in the Kingdom as listed:

# Non GHG Metric Activity
1 MW installed capacity Renewable electricity generation
2 MWh produced/saved Renewable electricity generation, energy efficiency improvement
3 m2 floor area Energy efficient buildings (new)
4 m3 saved/produced Water efficiency improvement, renewable desalination
5 Person-km Electric passenger vehicles, rail-based public transport
6 Tonne-km Electric freight road and rail transport vehicles
7 Units replaced Cooling equipment replacement
8 MW capacity replaced Cooling equipment replacement
9 Tonne of RDF used RDF use in cement industry
10 Tonne of H2 / ammonia produced Replacement of grey H2 /ammonia with green or blue H2 /ammonia
11 Tonne of recycled material Recycling of wastes
12 Tonne of waste incinerated Waste incineration
13 ha of forest land; number of vegetation units Afforestation and reforestation
14 Tonne of product Localisation of agriculture
Note: This table will be updated after Guidance from SBSTA/COP
Renewable Energy

The load factor of renewable electricity generation plants i.e., their share of operational hours in the total hours of a year, depends on the availability of the underlying resource. For solar power plants a natural limit of the load factor is given by the share of sunlight hours in the overall hours of the day; while site-specific influences are cloud cover (which is higher near the sea and in high mountains) and dust prevalence (which is higher in the desert).

A conservative approach would be to choose the highest cloud cover and dustiness that exists in a certain geographic area, for example differentiated by coastal lowlands at the Red Sea, mountains above 1000m altitude, the interior (>100 km from the coast) and the coast of the Arabian Gulf.

Desalination Plants, Buildings and Vehicles:

The energy intensity of desalination plants, buildings and vehicles strongly depends on the characteristics of technology used, buildings and vehicles. A differentiation could be done as follows:

  1. Desalination plants: Reverse osmosis (RO), multistage flash (MSF) and multieffect distillation (MED).
  2. Building types: e.g. single family homes, multi-apartment / commercial accommodation buildings below 5 floors, accommodation buildings (apartments and commercial accommodation above 5 floors, office buildings above 5 floors, shopping malls.
  3. Passenger vehicle types: private cars and SUVs, commercial and administrative car fleets, buses. Differentiation as per SASO standards.
  4. Freight vehicle types: Differentiation as per SASO standards.
  5. Freight vehicle types: Differentiation as per SASO standards.
  6. The operation hours of cooling equipment: as specified in academic study (Krarti and Howarth (2020)).