where can I check the electricity carbon emission factor used in the calculation process

Question

Hello, may I ask, for example, if I use the EF database and then utilize the relevant electricity datasets within it, and subsequently calculate the carbon emission value of consuming a certain amount of electricity through the openLCA software, this process must have used the corresponding electricity carbon emission factor value. Then, where can I check the electricity carbon emission factor used in the calculation process? I look forward to your reply!

Answer 1

Hi,

emission factors are not stored as a single number (like "X kg CO₂/kWh"). Instead, they are derived from the life cycle inventory (LCI) of the electricity process. openLCA calculates the total global warming potential (GWP) by applying a Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) method (here EF 3.1 method). The “emission factor” you see is therefore the result of the LCI (flows) × characterization factors (from the LCIA method). However, what you want to see is found in the contribution tree (https://greendelta.github.io/openLCA2-manual/res_analysis/res_contribution_tree.html) after you have calculated your product system.

Hope this helps