Dynamic Life Cycle Assessment of Electric Power Dispatch with Different Temporal Precision Levels

The share of energy produced from various sources throughout the day, and month is not constant and depends on demand, technical constraints, and the availability of gener-ation units. Consequently, the level of pollution resulting from electricity generation during a fixed period is not consistent. So far, in the majority of countries, the environmental assessment of energy production typically involves evaluating the average yearly impacts associated with the electricity generated. Hence, this paper proposes a dynamic life cycle model, considering various levels of temporal accuracy, for a real case study on Kundur Island in Indonesia. The presented model analyzes and compares daily and monthly variations in dispatching electricity from 12 generating units operated on the island for four midpoint potential impacts, including global warming potential (GWP), human toxicity potential (HTP), photochemical ozone creation potential (POCP), and eutrophication potential (EP), against an-nual average values. The proposed model first models the Kundur power grid and then determines the temporal aggregation of the electricity mix. Using the OpenLCA software based on the CML-IA midpoint method, the temporal distribution of four indicators is obtained. By coupling this distribution with the hourly power dispatch of each unit achieved by load flow study in PowerFactory software, the impact profile is calculated. The outcomes regarding the GWP impact demonstrate a fluctuation spanning of CO2 from 1.9 to 2.8 kg per kWh for the electricity generated when assessed at an hourly resolution. This alteration in impact results increases by up to 40% when the analysis is conducted on a monthly basis.