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Development of a framework for the sustainability evaluation of renewable and fossil fuel power plants using integrated LCA-emergy analysis: a case study in Iran

Alizadeh, S ; Sharif University of Technology | 2021

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  1. Type of Document: Article
  2. DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.07.140
  3. Publisher: Elsevier Ltd , 2021
  4. Abstract:
  5. This study presents a comprehensive framework for evaluating renewable and non-renewable power plants' performance using the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and emergy analysis. The emergy analysis is used to consider the free ecosystem services in the sustainability of the systems as a supplement to the LCA. The results indicate that the wind and photovoltaic power plants have the best performance in terms of the LCA analysis, while the wind and combined cycle power plants have the highest emergy sustainability index. The best scenario is chosen under a two-objective optimization problem, including the single score and emergy sustainability as objective functions. Here, the wind power plant is the most interesting option while the combined cycle power plant with CO2 capture is the least interesting alternative. In this study, a novel framework is developed to assess the Cost of Avoided Carbon emissions (CACe) using the integrated LCA-emergy analysis for the combined cycle power plant in which its value is evaluated to be about $151.65/ton of CO2. Eventually, an uncertainty analysis is performed on the solar transformities using Monte Carlo simulation. The framework presented in this paper provides insights to increase power plants' sustainability for managers and authorities. © 2021 Elsevier Ltd
  6. Keywords:
  7. Ecosystems ; Fossil fuel power plants ; Fossil fuels ; Intelligent systems ; Monte Carlo methods ; Multiobjective optimization ; Photovoltaic cells ; Pollution control ; Sustainable development ; Uncertainty analysis ; Combined-cycle power plant ; Emergy analysis ; Emergy sustainability ; Lifecycle analysis ; Multiobjective optimization problems (MOPs) ; NSGA-II method ; Pollution control strategy ; Renewable power plant ; Sustainability evaluations ; Wind power plants ; Life cycle ; Alternative energy ; Carbon dioxide ; Fossil fuel ; Index method ; Life cycle analysis ; Power plant ; Sustainability ; Wind power ; Iran
  8. Source: Renewable Energy ; Volume 179 , 2021 , Pages 1548-1564 ; 09601481 (ISSN)
  9. URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960148121011514