4. Methodology Overview

Greenpixie's regional factors methodology produces the carbon, energy and water factors that apply to a workload in a given cloud region. Greenpixie calculates the emissions intensity of the electricity grids serving those cloud regions for every hour. It publishes that intensity as a Grid Carbon Intensity (GCI) factor for each cloud region and hour.

For each grid area, Greenpixie selects one source and one calculation approach, on the basis of what the grid operator or the responsible national body publishes for that area. Where a grid operator publishes generation by fuel, Greenpixie multiplies each fuel's share by an emission factor for that grid area and sums the products. Where a grid operator publishes a carbon intensity directly, Greenpixie takes that figure as the grid area's intensity, as published. Where neither exists, the methodology calculates the intensity from a modelled national generation mix or a national inventory figure, at the resolution its publisher supports. Every approach produces the same four figures on the same basis, being the total intensity and its combustion, upstream and downstream, and transmission and distribution components. A cloud region drawing on more than one grid area is calculated as a single weighted average.

The methodology operates through five parts, being source data collection, grid area intensity calculation, cloud region mapping, gap treatment and provenance labelling, and cloud provider efficiency factors. Section 7 describes each in detail. Together they produce the region-specific factors applied by the cloud and AI methodologies.