Nowadays, due to the increasing energy demand in different industry, agriculture, and household sectors, great importance is attached to energy portfolio and generation/consumption in macrolevel planning. A viable approach to power generation planning is the environmental assessment of the power generation process. This study employs life cycle assessment based on Eco-Indicator 99 methodology which analyzes midpoint and endpoint impacts. Energy impact evaluation is based on Eco-invent database from resource harvesting to recycling. The study aims to assess Iran's energy production/consumption portfolio, but technical construction, operation, and recycling are not discussed. The study focuses on energy demand and energy generation resources in Iran, under three energy portfolio scenarios: (1) a basic scenario is a real energy portfolio for Iran's 2018-power demand, (2) Iran's 2050-energy portfolio with maximum accessible renewable energy capacity, and (3) Iran's 2050-energy portfolio with zero-carbon emission to evaluate the final consequences of life cycle. The York model is used to estimate energy demand in 2050. The Green-X model is used to evaluate the relationship between the impacts and economic growth. Iran's energy portfolio has a low emission, compared with the global portfolio with a 36%-coal application. Among Iran's portfolios, the most adventitious scenario is in 2018, followed by the 2050 portfolio with population growth and 50% increase in energy demand, and the zero-carbon scenario with 64% of energy portfolio based on solar and wind energy technologies. Compared with the 2018 scenario, in the second and third scenarios, the environmental effects are decreased by 40% and 52%, respectively, indicating the significance of renewable energy in reducing the environmental consequences.
K E Y W O R D Sassessment of Iran's energy portfolio (electricity mix), energy demand prediction, environmental assessment of energy systems, Iran's energy perspective, LCA of energy, zero-carbon energy portfolio