A systematic methodology for the environomic design and synthesis of energy systems combining process integration, Life Cycle Assessment and industrial ecology

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic methodology for sustainable process systems design, combining the principles of industrial ecology, process design and process integration, Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and multi-objective optimization (MOO). The superstructure considers an extended decision perimeter and embeds models based either on flowsheeting software or average market technologies, for which energy and material flows are extracted from the Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database. Therefore, the overall supply chain can be synthesized within a given action system and the systematic recyclings identified. The methodology can be used to design eco-industrial parks or urban systems, to identify the best conversion pathways of resources or waste, or to fix the optimal value of environmental taxes. It is illustrated by an application to the environomic design of an urban energy system. This case study considers multiple energy services to be supplied and waste to be treated, with their seasonal variations, indigenous and imported resources, as well as different candidate conversion technologies. Results demonstrate that integrating an environmental objective in the design procedure leads to consider different system configurations than if only economic aspects are considered. The problematic of the optimal value of a CO 2 tax is as well addressed. e i emission factor of substance i from the flash system condensers, in kg-i/kg-geofluid e CO2,N GCC specific CO2 emissions of electricity production from NGCC, in kg CO2-eq/kWh e e CO2,N GCC specific CO2 emissions of heating production from natural gas boiler, in kg CO2-eq/kWh t h E CO2,av yearly avoided life-cycle CO2-equivalent emissions, in kg CO2-eq/yr I C impact due to the construction phase I E impact due to the end-of-life phase Nomenclaturė

Integration of deep geothermal energy and woody biomass conversion pathways in urban systems

“…The MILP formulation is based on the work by Maréchal and Kalitventzeff [31], later extended to include time-dependency [34] and mass balances [15]. The multiperiod storage formulation is a novelty of this work.…”

“…The contextualization of technology assessment within energy systems, in particular at the urban level, has emerged in the last years [13]. Gerber et al [15] have applied multi-objective optimization for the evaluation of deep geothermal and biomass (direct combustion in boiler and gasification) integration in an urban system taking into account total yearly cost and Global Warming Potential (GWP) with a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach. The urban system is modeled in its entirety (only decentralized heating is excluded) and one year is broken down into a set of independent periods with different heating and electricity requirements.…”

Multi-objectives, multi-period optimization of district energy systems: III. Distribution networks

“…The life cycle assessment can be included in the thermo-economic optimization of energy systems [28]. For this purpose, the LCI is defined for reference size of each subsystem taking into account resources and products.…”

OsmoseLua – An Integrated Approach to Energy Systems Integration with LCIA and GIS

“…The database ecoinvent version 3.1 was used for the integration of energy modeling variables accessible for the optimization modeling (Weidema et al 2013). As done by Gerber et al (2013), energy flows such as fuel or electricity consumption are modeled by associating with each flow a corresponding LCI ecoinvent unit process. Likewise,…”

“…economic, thermodynamic and environmental indicators). Following a two-stage decomposition strategy the problem is divided into a master problem and a slave subproblem (Gerber et al 2013, Weber, 2008. The master problem is solved using a Queueing Multi-Objective Optimization (QMOO) technique (Leyland 2002).…”