CBAM Guide for Electricity Exports

Electricity is the simplest of CBAM's 6 sectors in structure — a single product item, measured in MWh rather than tons like the others. But this simplicity doesn't diminish the sector's importance: for businesses engaged in cross-border electricity trade, CBAM applies directly.

For how CBAM works in general, the transition timeline, and the certificate cost formula, we recommend first reading our general CBAM guide — here we focus directly on the coefficient and example specific to the Electricity sector.

Electricity CBAM Coefficient

CBAM covers a single item in the Electricity sector (CN code 2716):

Source: the CBAM section of our Bibliography page (full list of all 25 products).

Why MWh, and Why Different From Other Sectors?

While the other 5 CBAM sectors measure the embedded emissions of a physical PRODUCT (in tons), electricity isn't a tangible good but an ENERGY FLOW, so the unit is naturally MWh — much like the "Grid Electricity Coefficients by Country" table on our Bibliography page shows, the emissions intensity of electricity depends on the generation mix (coal/natural gas/nuclear/ renewables). The 0.65 ton CO2e/MWh value CBAM uses is a conservative reference assumption used for cross-border electricity trade — a deliberately cautious figure specific to CBAM's own methodology, rather than any single country's grid average.

Worked Example

For a company exporting 500 MWh of electricity (coefficient: 0.65 ton CO2e/MWh):

Embedded Emissions = 500 MWh × 0.65 = 325 ton CO2e
Cost = 500 × 0.65 × €72.5/ton (EU ETS price) × 0.10 (2026 phase-out rate) = €2,356.25

At the same export volume, this figure will rise to roughly 2.5 times that amount in 2027 (at a 25% rate), and 10 times that amount by 2032 (at a 100% rate) — see the transition timeline in our general CBAM guide for details.