# What are India's operating, build and combined margin factors for FY 2025-26?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/india-operating-build-combined-margin-2025-26

For FY 2025-26 CEA gives an operating margin of 0.963, a build margin of 0.446 and a combined margin of 0.705 t CO2 per MWh, adjusted for cross-border transfers. These describe the power a project displaces. They are for carbon project baselines, not for a company's Scope 2 footprint.

## What each margin means

- Operating margin: average emissions of stations excluding low-cost and must-run sources, such as hydro and nuclear.
- Build margin: average emissions of the most recent 20% of capacity additions by net generation, including renewables.
- Combined margin: weighted average of the two, 50:50 by default.

## Five-year trend, t CO2 per MWh

- Build margin: 0.869, 0.867, 0.552, 0.512, 0.446 from FY 2021-22 to FY 2025-26
- Combined margin: 0.915, 0.919, 0.757, 0.736, 0.705
- Operating margin: between 0.960 and 0.971 throughout

## Why the build margin fell

From FY 2023-24 CEA counts renewable generation in the build margin. New capacity is now mostly solar and wind, so the build margin nearly halved and pulled the combined margin down with it.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads electricity and fuel invoices into dated, site-level records, useful as monitoring evidence for the project's own consumption and output. It does not register or issue carbon credits.

- [Weighted average vs combined margin](https://senseible.earth/answers/cea-weighted-average-vs-combined-margin)
- [CCTS tool BM-T-003](https://senseible.earth/answers/ccts-tool-bm-t-003-electricity-emission-factor)
- [Wind and solar project factor](https://senseible.earth/answers/grid-factor-for-wind-solar-project-india)

Sources: [CEA, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, User Guide and database, Version 22.0 (August 2026)](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-view?mappingId=234&lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-10-23.