Xcel Energy Explores GE Vernova’s Emissions Management Software on Path to Net Zero

Xcel Energy is a major regulated electric and natural gas delivery company that serves approximately 3.7 million electricity and 2.1 million natural gas customers across the Midwestern and Western United States.

In 2018, Xcel Energy became the first utility in the United States to set a net zero goal for 2050. This net zero initiative includes a comprehensive strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote sustainability across its enterprise. For years, Xcel Energy has measured and reported emissions data.

Xcel Energy is participating with GE Vernova’s CERius™ Carbon Emissions Management Software team in a pilot program at three generation facilities: Cherokee Generating Station, Fort Lupton Power Station, and Pawnee Generating Station.

To gauge the success of the CERius pilot project, Xcel Energy has set clear and measurable criteria.

• Increased Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Visibility: Contextualized views of emissions at the asset- and site-level, offering deeper insights into greenhouse gas emissions.
• Decarbonization Planning & Strategy: Abatement planning and projections data, carbon reduction management, and baseline strategy for decarbonization.
• Automated Scope 1 Data Collection: Data aggregation automation will be confirmed for three key plants participating in the pilot.
• Increased Accuracy in Scope 1 Data Accounting: By validating current emissions data collection against CERius' automated calculations, Xcel Energy aims to demonstrate improved accuracy for monitored assets, including Natural Gas Combined-Cycle and Simple Cycle Turbines. Historical data provided by Xcel Energy will serve as the benchmark for validation.
• Improved Data Collection Process: The pilot will validate that manual data collection efforts have been significantly improved through automation.

CERius™ is designed to enable organizations to better measure, manage, and operationalize insights needed to help companies track their carbon emissions goals. The software is engineered to automate GHG data collection and validation. Additionally, CERius provides recommendations to operationalize carbon reduction efforts by offering abatement planning, decarbonization strategy outcomes, scenario analysis, team collaboration, carbon reduction optimization, and standardized reporting based on GHG standard protocols. Implementing cross-functional standards and processes fueled by CERius helps position companies to address ever-evolving regulatory compliance.

CERius can help energy and heavy industrial companies better manage their complex emissions data, compliance, financial, and regulatory reporting, and strategic abatement planning. Additional analytics using Artificial Intelligence (AI) provide insights directly drawn from historical, current plant, and enterprise-level processes. The software aims to help with certain key benefits, including:

1. Decarbonization Strategy, Planning, and Activation: Companies can set baselines, define reduction goals, and simulate and evaluate different abatement scenarios to optimize their carbon management strategies. Users can assess the potential impact of various initiatives—such as renewable energy integration, energy efficiency measures, and carbon offset projects—to identify the most effective pathways for reaching net-zero targets.
2. Multi-Team Collaboration: Transparent cross-functional visibility across sustainability executives, managers, and operators to help simplify audit preparations, further breaking down department and information silos. Receive data quality alerts to resolve quickly to get back on track collectively. This enhances trust and credibility while showcasing the company’s commitment to decarbonize.
3. Emissions Tracking: Automated collection and increased data accuracy to measure and monitor carbon emissions across various operations including assets, plants, and at the enterprise level across scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions data. CERius offers near real-time data visualization and reporting capabilities, empowering companies to track their progress and make data-driven decisions to manage emissions reduction programs. Measurement of scope 1 emissions reporting is improved by as much as 33% using gas fuel systems and fuel flow, not generic estimations by fuel consumption. Using precise data allows organizations to make better carbon reduction investments and measure the program’s impact on overall net-zero strategy.
4. Complement Regulatory, Financial, and Compliance Reporting: With ever-evolving regulatory requirements, CERius will help simplify compliance management by automating collection and analysis of emissions data. Increasing data accuracy and precision helps energy companies report to regulatory bodies using established standards effectively so teams can focus on decarbonization programs, not data collection and verification.

The pilot with Xcel Energy comes on the heels of GE Vernova’s first CERius pilot customer, Azito Energie. Learn more here.