Hello!
If we use a consequential system model to calculate the LCA of a hydropower plant, for exemple, how Ecoinvent 3.10 knows which other electricity source to displace when calculating the credits related to the by-products?
Besides the location and the mix of the electrical grid, this displacement depends on which electricity source would be dispatched, that in its turn depends of a bumch of other things. So I wonder how this displacement is being calculated by Ecoinvent.
In the Ecoinvent support we read that:
"In the consequential system model, all by-products are moved to the input side with a negative sign to maintain the mass balance. As no allocation is applied, the activity is burdened with the impact of all its inputs and emissions. By-products that can substitute other production bring credit to the activity producing them, as they displace part of the product that would have otherwise been produced as a reference product. For example, the production of electricity from incineration processes feeds energy to the grid that would have otherwise been produced by other sources, such as the combustion of fossil fuels. "
