Why does the Hooghly cold storage energy profile say the cluster emits 0.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2), when its own unit figures give about 0.08 million?

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) profile prints 0.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) for the cluster, but its own unit table adds to about 79,900 tonnes. The factor implied by the electricity row is ten times the unit rows. The cause is not stated, but a slipped decimal fits.

What the profile prints

The Hooghly cold storage energy profile is a TERI draft report dated September 2023. It gives three store sizes, with kilowatt hours (kWh) and diesel a year and tonnes of CO2 a year:

• Below 10,000 tonnes: 554,182 kWh, 4,700 litres, 405 tonnes of CO2.
• 10,000 to 20,000 tonnes: 811,734 kWh, 2,150 litres, 581 tonnes.
• Above 20,000 tonnes: 1,092,890 kWh, 2,867 litres, 783 tonnes.
• Cluster: 110.9 million kWh and 0.5 million litres of diesel. The text says the carbon emissions are about 0.8 million tonnes, and Table 1 gives 787,054 tonnes for electricity, 1,251 for diesel and 788,306 in total.

Three checks, all from the profile's own numbers

1. Factor behind the unit rows. Take the CO2 per store, remove the diesel at 2.645 kilograms a litre, and divide by the kWh: about 0.708, 0.709 and 0.710 kilograms per kWh. The profile does not print its factor, but all three rows use about 0.71.
2. Factor behind the cluster row. 787,054 tonnes over 110.9 million kWh is 7.10 kilograms per kWh, ten times the unit rows.
3. Add up the stores. The profile counts 62, 70 and 18 stores. 62 x 405 + 70 x 581 + 18 x 783 = 79,874 tonnes. Their kWh add to 110.85 million and their diesel to 493,506 litres, matching the cluster's 110.9 million and 0.5 million.

The likely cause, and how sure we are

The printed electricity figure, 787,054 tonnes over 110.9 million kWh, implies 7.097 kilograms per kWh. Divide that by ten and you get 0.7097, which falls inside the 0.708 to 0.710 range the three unit rows give. So the cluster row is consistent with the unit rows if one decimal place was lost. The diesel row, 1,251 tonnes on 0.5 million litres, is close to 2.5 kilograms a litre, a little under the 2.645 used here, and too small to matter beside the electricity row. Our reading is that a decimal slip carried into the text as well. TERI does not say so, so quote it as our reading.

Which number to use

• Anything quoting 0.8 million tonnes for the cluster is about ten times too high on the profile's own data.
• About 79,900 tonnes is the profile's own unit-level total. About 76,200 tonnes is the same energy at the 0.675 kilograms per kWh grid factor for 2025-26, which is the figure on the Hooghly power page here.
• For one store, the profile's unit rows hold: 405 tonnes for a store under 10,000 tonnes. Your own bills beat all of these.

The three totals, worked

• Printed: 787,054 / 110,900,000 kWh = 0.00710 tonnes, or 7.10 kilograms per kWh
• Unit rows: (405,000 minus 12,432) / 554,182 = 0.708 kilograms per kWh, with diesel 4,700 x 2.645 = 12,432 kilograms
• Cluster at 0.71: 110,900,000 x 0.71 = 78,739,000 kilograms, about 78,700 tonnes
• Sum of stores: 25,110 + 40,670 + 14,094 = 79,874 tonnes
• At 0.675: 110,900,000 x 0.675 = 74,857 tonnes, plus 0.5 million litres x 2.645 = 1,323 tonnes, about 76,180 tonnes

All inputs are the profile's printed figures. Diesel at 2.645 kilograms of CO2 per litre and grid 0.675 for 2025-26 are Senseible's factors. The profile does not state its own factor.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so a store's own kWh and diesel litres give its tonnes of carbon dioxide without relying on a cluster average. It does not correct published reports.

• Hooghly cold stores: power per tonne
• Cold storage emissions per tonne
• Ammonia against HFC refrigerant
• Free calculators

Sources: TERI, Energy profile: Hooghly cold storage cluster (draft report, September 2023), CEA, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector (0.675 kg CO2 per kWh, 2025-26)

Last reviewed 2026-11-05. All figures except the 0.675 grid factor and 2.645 diesel factor are the profile's printed numbers; the arithmetic is ours. The decimal-slip explanation fits because the implied factor, divided by ten, falls inside the unit rows' range, but it is not confirmed by TERI.