Dataset: A proxy for historical CO2 emissions related to centralised electricity generation in Europe

Abstract

This paper presents data for the estimation of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from public generation of electricity in the period from 1990 to 2018 in European countries. The base data used in the calculation of the proxy are the national emissions reported to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the European Union (EU) Greenhouse Gas Monitoring Mechanism. Subsequently, this data is compiled and held by the European Environment Agency (EEA) from where it is accessed. The emission data is reported aggregated from thermal power stations, district heating plants, and cogeneration in combined heat and power (CHP) plants. We calculate a proxy for emissions by electricity generation alone by combining the emissions from thermal power stations and the share of CPH emissions belonging to electricity generation. The computed data was validated on the period from 2000 to 2015 by comparing it to a secondary dataset. The found emission values of the year 1990 are of particular importance as this is a commonly used emission reference year. The provided dataset, charts and figures can be reused for both analysing past emission evolutions and building models about future electricity generation emissions in Europe. The dataset is freely available in [1]. A subset of the dataset has been applied in “CO2 quota attribution effects on the European electricity system comprised of self-centred actors” [2] to assess the effects of potential total and national CO2 quota attributions in the European electricity system of the near future.