Create energy mix process

Question

Hello all,

I have one beginner questions, I am using openlca 1.7 and ecoinvent 3.4 database on mac computer. And I would like to model operational energy consumption of a reference house.

There is many processes related to energy production of both electricity and heat. What I would like is to make ''electricity mix process (energy in kWh)'' that is composed of all the electricity produced by different types of fuel that are used in specific country (el. production from coal, natural gas, solar, wind, biomass etc.) and the same for the heating process.

But if I create process ''electricity mix'' only input I can add is a flow? For example if I add flow like coal the unit is in kg not kWh what I need. And only considering flow does not account for many other processes and flows related to produce electricity.

Is there any way to make this? I tried to google different ways of making a model but ended empty handed.

Thank you

Answer 1

Hi and welcome,

you can simply create one process that uses the electricity mix as you need (10, 20, 70% electricity -> 0.1, 0.2, 0.7 kWh of electricity provided from different electricity generation sources, which you enter as poviders, for production of 1 kWh electricity). To be more realistic, maybe add distribution and transformation.

Sth else: I would recommend you switch to openLCA 1.9 since there we updated the numerical libraries for the Mac version which are now way faster.

Best wishes,

Andreas

addition:

Providers are processes delivering a product, you can select them in the i/o section of a process:

(from a different database, with only one provider per product).

The 1.9 version is here:

Comments

Hi Andreas, sorry to bother but I cannot find an answer on modelling my process using your mentioned transformation.
If my system is about energy consumption of households, what is correct way to use transformation process? As input? And amount would be the sum of amounts of different sources used at high voltage? If my output is el mix 1 kWh, and all sources are summed up to 1kwh as you said it should be done, doesn't transformation (amount of all high voltage sources) influence the output amount? Or the transformation is regarded as loss? I am bit confused by this option. When I check the impact using this transformation process has the highest one. I would appreciate help.