Contribution project

Independent energy supply for rural households

China, Sichuan

ClimatePartner ID: 1116

Project details

BiogasGet to know the project

The rural areas in Sichuan Province are among the least developed in China. The Sichuan Household Biogas Programme of Activities (PoA) provides up to one million low-income households with biogas plants and efficient biogas stoves in order to improve people's lives and at the same time contribute to climate protection. The plants are filled with animal faeces that were previously disposed of in open slurry pits. The plants convert organic waste into clean, affordable biogas that can be used for cooking, heating or lighting instead of coal and firewood. After switching to biogas, each smallholder family saves around 2 tons of methane and carbon dioxide emissions per year.

The small biogas plants are installed and maintained via a dense network of local service centres and many certified biogas technicians throughout Sichuan. The project was awarded the National Energy Globe Award 2014 as China's best carbon offset project.

800,000 t CO₂Estimated annual emissions reductions

Project Standard

The project contributes to the the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals

How do biogas projects help fight global warming?

In biogas facilities, biomass is fermented into biogas in sealed digesters. Biomass may consist of organic waste or dung from cows or other animals. In countries like India or Vietnam, families use the gas from small biogas plants for cooking. This reduces CO2 emissions that would be produced by cooking with wood or charcoal. Biogas plants also prevent methane from escaping into the atmosphere, as is the case when organic waste is stored in an open pit. Instead, the gas is fed from the closed digesters to specific cookers and thus provides an independent and renewable source of energy.

The project aims to contribute to these United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Project facts

Climate projects generally fall into one of three groups: carbon reduction, carbon removal, or carbon avoidance. Carbon reduction projects reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by a specific activity (e.g., improved cookstoves). Carbon removal projects remove carbon from the atmosphere by sequestering it in carbon sinks (e.g., reforestation). Carbon avoidance projects avoid greenhouse gas emissions entering the atmosphere (e.g., protecting forests from deforestation with REDD+ projects).

Climate projects demonstrably reduce, remove, or avoid greenhouse gas emissions. This is achieved with various technologies, ranging from nature-based solutions to social impact projects and renewable energies.

Most standards on the voluntary carbon market list their projects in public registries. The registries are used to store project data and track issuances and retirements of verified emission reductions. The registry ID can be used to identify projects in the standard registry.

Check out this project

Climate projects go through third-party validation and verification. Verification happens regularly after each monitoring period. A validation and verification body checks and assesses whether the values and project activities stated in the monitoring report are correct and verifies them. As with validation, visits to the project site are often part of the process.

Climate projects go through third-party validation and verification. Validation happens early in the project life cycle and ensures that the project design is in line with current processes and requirements. This phase often also involves field visits with on-site interviews and analyses. Auditors are accredited, impartial assessors who have to be approved as a validation and verification body (VVB) by the standards body.

This figure shows the estimated annual emission reductions calculated before the project started. The actual number of emissions saved in each monitoring period may differ. The background to this process is that in order to be registered as a climate project, the project operator must submit the calculation of the estimated emissions savings using the ex-ante methodology in a Project Design Document (PDD), which is similar to a business plan. This calculation is validated by an independent auditor. The values determined in the PDD are recalculated during regular monitoring periods based on actual project performance, documented in a monitoring report, and verified again by independent auditors at the end of the monitoring period to ensure a robust process. Independent verification thus provides ex-post verification of actual emission reductions. Verified emission reductions are not distributed until the savings have actually been made.

* For certified projects only: the project-related information on this page is based on the documents in the register.

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