2. Scope and Applicability

2.1 In Scope

The methodology applies to the following:

• Grid carbon intensity factors. Hourly emissions intensity, expressed per kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed, for the electricity grid areas that supply supported cloud regions, configured as Section 6.1 sets out.
• Supported cloud providers. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Emissions components. Combustion at the point of generation, the upstream and downstream lifecycle, and the electricity lost in transmission and distribution before reaching the consumer.
• Accounting basis. Location-based factors prepared in accordance with the GHG Protocol Scope 2 Guidance, using the average generation mix of the grid area that served the consumption.
• Geographic coverage. National grids, sub-national market and balancing areas, and separate island systems, wherever a supported cloud region draws electricity from one of those systems.
• Temporal resolution. Hourly factors in Coordinated Universal Time, built at the finest resolution the source for each grid area supports.
• Data centre energy overhead. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) for every supported cloud region, taken from the disclosure its cloud provider publishes. Where no disclosure covers the cloud region, Greenpixie assigns a value on the basis set out in Section 7.6.
• Water stress classification. A ranked water stress category for the location of each supported cloud region, taken from Aqueduct 4.0.

2.2 Out of Scope

The following are not covered by this methodology:

• Market-based emissions factors, including renewable energy certificates, guarantees of origin, and power purchase agreements.
• Marginal emissions intensity, being the intensity of the generation that would respond to a change in demand. The factors describe the average mix of a grid area across the hour.
• Electricity grids that serve no supported cloud region and that no supported cloud region is expected to draw on.
• Emissions from a customer's own premises, equipment, or on-site generation.

2.3 Evaluation Boundary

The evaluation boundary encompasses the emissions of electricity generation within each grid area, across the full lifecycle of the technologies generating within that area. It also covers the emissions attributable to the electricity lost in transmission and distribution before reaching the point of consumption. Combustion emissions and upstream and downstream emissions are quantified at the point of generation. The transmission and distribution component carries the adjustment from a generated basis to a delivered one. Together the three components sum to the total intensity attributable to a unit of electricity consumed in that grid area. This boundary stops at the point of consumption. Energy drawn by equipment inside a data centre, and the facility overhead applied to that energy, falls within the cloud methodology.