China Electric Power Research Institute Builds Power Footprint System

People's Daily reported that the China Electric Power Research Institute established a calculation framework and system platform spanning the full electric power supply chain. Built through a Beijing outstanding young engineer innovation studio, the system measures the life-cycle carbon emissions of a kilowatt-hour of electricity across generation, transmission, distribution, and end use. To address industry problems including overlapping accounting boundaries, inconsistent data standards, omissions, and double counting, the research team created an underlying database from scratch. This database incorporates power sources, transmission and distribution, electrical equipment, and power transmission and transformation engineering segments. The researchers also formulated a three-level penetrative analysis method covering systems, projects, and equipment, alongside a quantification model for transmission and distribution factors. This mechanism establishes a bottom-up cumulative and reverse-tracing pathway, enabling carbon emissions tracking down to equipment components and construction units. The developed calculation technology and platform have been deployed in Sichuan and Anhui, successfully calculating provincial electric power carbon footprint factors for both regions. These metrics offer local enterprises region-tailored data support for calculating product footprints while advancing broader carbon footprint management efforts.