Energy v1.4

• Climatiq has released a minor update to the energy feature, which is now available. The update refreshes emission factors across electricity, heat and fuel, expands district heat coverage to five more countries, and changes how generation factors are chosen for US states.
• This is a non-breaking change from v1.3, and so you can just update the URL you use and immediately start using it. This is released as a separate version, so that you have control over when to adopt the changes which can result in material changes to your estimations.
• This is the changelog & upgrade guide for v1.4. See our API versioning guide for how API versioning works at Climatiq.
• This document lists the changes between v1.3 and v1.4.

Changes between v1.3 and v1.4

Updated data

All of the energy endpoints now use data release 37, up from data release 32 in v1.3. Expect emission factors to update in many regions as national sources publish newer figures.

The emission factors used when the energy_source of a component (for example biomass or natural_gas) were previously pinned to data release 20, and now update inline with the rest of the emission factors to data release 37.

Electricity

US state estimates now use the eGRID subregion

The emission factors selected for a US state are now taken from the eGRID subregion that covers most of that state, rather than from emissions factors for the state itself. The EPA state emission factors do not account for cross-state trade and therefore are not suitable for scope 2 reporting - we no longer update these US state scoped emission factors.

Nothing changes in how you make the request — you still send the state, or preferably a US-XXXXX zip code — and supplier-specific factors are still chosen using the state you asked for. When the substitution happens, a new us_state_generation_replaced_by_subregion info notice naming the subregion used is included in the response.

New regions

26 new regions are supported by core data:

• Malaysia: the thirteen states MY-01 to MY-13, via the Energy Commission of Malaysia
• French overseas territories: BL, GF, GP, GP-HCOM, MF, MQ, PF, PF-PPT, PM, RE, YT, plus the Corsican region FR-20R
• Taiwan: from the Government of Taiwan

China, Japan and Italy also gained latest data from national sources.

And 3 new aggregate regions were added from the IEA: ASEAN, G7 and G20

Improved transmission and distribution coverage

France, Italy and the United States now have their own transmission and distribution factors, where previously they fell back to global or US-wide defaults.

New supplier coverage

Dubai (AE-DU) is now available as a supplier region, and around 35 new supplier IDs have been added, mostly Spanish retailers.

Simplified market-based calculations

Where we have no market-method emission factor for a request, the market-based estimate is now identical to the location-based estimate. Previously the two could differ purely as an artifact of the fallback.

Heat and Steam

New regions

Native coverage expands from AT, BE, DE, GB, NL and US to also include Denmark (DK), Finland (FI), Italy (IT), Norway (NO) and Sweden (SE).

National heat production used as a fallback

Where no regional district heat emission factor is available for a country, a national heat-production factor is now used instead. Italy is currently served this way.

These national factors are not necessarily representative of local district heat networks, so a new national_heat_production_used_as_fallback warning notice is returned when this happens.

Notices are now returned for heat

The heat and steam responses (both single and batch) now include a top-level notices array, matching the electricity and fuel responses. Previously there were no notices for heat and steam.

Fuel Combustion

fuel_use parameter is now documented and matched on similarity

The fuel_use request parameter currently has three recommended values: manufacturing for an industrial process, stationary for other installed plant, and mobile for a vehicle or other mobile engine.

When the exact use you asked for is not available for the chosen fuel type, unit and region, a broader form of it is now preferred — mobile answers a request for mobile_buses, and stationary answers a request for manufacturing — followed by a factor that names no use at all. A factor on the wrong side of the mobile/stationary divide is now actively avoided. Where a substitution is made, a no_fuel_use_match notice explains which kind; falling back to a broader or generic use is reported as info, and an unrelated use as a warning.

Deprecated factors are avoided

Non-deprecated emission factors are now preferred before matching on optional parameters, rather than only as a final tie-break. Previously a deprecated factor that matched the requested year exactly could be chosen ahead of a non-deprecated one with a non-matching year.

Response changes

additional_indicators for Gross biogenic disclosures

The additional_indicators object is now included, as in other endpoints, and is empty ({}) where the emission factor has no additional indicator data.

biogenic_product_emissions_co2e and biogenic_product_removals_co2 are returned within additional_indicators wherever the underlying factor provides them.

co2_biogenic is being deprecated

The co2_biogenic field is still returned, but is superseded by the biogenic_product_emissions_co2e and biogenic_product_removals_co2 fields of additional_indicators. It will be removed in a future major version.