Assessment of Co-benefits of Clean Development Projects Based on the Project Design Documents of India’s Power’s Sector Currently under Registration and Validation

Energy-related Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects contribute to sustainable development through reducing air pollutants in addition to CO2 emissions. This paper evaluates the co-benefits of ten coal-fired power generation CDM projects which are currently in registration and validation with a power generation mix linear programming model in India’s power sector from 2006 to 2031. Two scenarios are developed to identify impacts of the CDM projects. As a result, the co-benefits are invoked by the CDM projects in India’s power sector. CO2 emissions decrease by 79 Mt CO2 and SOx and NOx emissions decrease by 0.8 Mt SOx and 0.6 Mt NOx from the baseline in 2031. Including benefits from the reduction of the air pollutants warrants sustainable development benefit and contributes to enhance the generated CER prices. Thus, we argue that addressing co-benefits encourages both host countries and investors to participate CDM projects.