The main objective of Sweden’s yearly submissions to UNFCCC, EU Monitoring Mechanism and CLRTAP is to produce as accurate data as possible on the total emissions on national level. For fuel combustion, the reported emissions are calculated from activity data on fuel consumption and fuel specific emission factors and thermal values.

The objective of this project is to compile information on data sources used today for those sectors that are covered by the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) for carbon dioxide (CO₂), and to identify any advantages or disadvantages with applying ETS data in the Swedish GHG inventory to a greater extent than today. The information is primarily assembled from earlier SMED reports on this subject. The issue of separating trading and non-trading plants is also addressed. 

Today, the main source of activity data is Statistics Sweden’s quarterly fuel survey (QS), which includes about 1100 plants. Mostly, national standard emission factor and thermal values are used to calculate the emissions. About 700 plants are part of the ETS. Every year, these plants report their emissions of CO₂ and in most cases the underlying consumption of fuels and raw materials to the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency. 

The greatest benefits from an increased use of ETS data would be achieved for those CRF sectors where the QS data is of questionable quality and/or the emissions are large and thus considerably contributes to the national totals. The prerequisites are, of course, different for different sectors. If ETS data should be used to the greatest extent possible for every sector, this would imply an additional cost of approx. SEK 200 000 per year.

This study shows that the CRF categories where it would be most beneficial to use ETS data to the greatest possible extent are 1A1b – oil refineries, 1A2d – pulp, paper and print, and CRF2 ingeneral, that is, process-related emissions. 

For a number of other CRF categories, it cannot be concluded that the data quality would be improved, and thus it would not be cost effective to use ETS data for these sectors, e.g. 1A1a, 1A2c, 1A2e and 1A2f. 

For a couple of categories, 1A1c and 1A2a, it is currently not possible to use ETS data for those plants that have the greatest emissions due to insufficient allocation of the emissions in the reporting to the ETS.