TY - JOUR
T1 - Environmental, economic and exergetic sustainability assessment of power generation from fossil and renewable energy sources
AU - Stougie, Lydia
AU - Giustozzi, Natalìa
AU - van der Kooi, Hedzer
AU - Stoppato, Anna
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - Energy conversion systems have assumed a crucial role in current society. The threat of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and the growing world energy demand ask for a more sustainable way of electricity production, eg, by using renewable energy sources, by improving the conversion efficiency and/or by controlling power plant emissions. Despite the relationship between exergy and sustainability stated in literature, exergy losses are usually not considered when comparing systems and energy sources for power generation. The exergetic sustainability assessment method named Total Cumulative Exergy Loss (TCExL) has been used to assess several systems for electricity production, ie, a coal-fired power plant, a coal-fired power plant including carbon capture and storage, a biomass-fired power plant, an offshore wind farm and a photovoltaic park. The results of the TCExL method have been compared with an environmental sustainability indicator, ie, the overall ReCiPe endpoint indicator and the economic indicator named Present Worth Ratio. The offshore wind farm is the best system from the exergetic and environmental point of view. The photovoltaic park is the system with the second-best scores. However, from the economic viewpoint including subsidy by the Dutch government, the photovoltaic park performs better than the wind farm system and the system that performs best is the biomass-fired power plant. Without subsidy, only the coal-fired power plant without carbon capture and storage is profitable. The exergetic sustainability scores of the coal-fired and biomass-fired power plants are similar, but from the environmental sustainability viewpoint, the biomass-fired power plant performs better than both coal-fired power plants. As the results of environmental and economic sustainability assessments strongly depend on models, weighting factors, subsidy, market prices, etc, while the results of the exergetic sustainability assessment do not, it is recommended that the exergetic sustainability be taken into account when assessing the sustainability of power generation and other technological systems.
AB - Energy conversion systems have assumed a crucial role in current society. The threat of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and the growing world energy demand ask for a more sustainable way of electricity production, eg, by using renewable energy sources, by improving the conversion efficiency and/or by controlling power plant emissions. Despite the relationship between exergy and sustainability stated in literature, exergy losses are usually not considered when comparing systems and energy sources for power generation. The exergetic sustainability assessment method named Total Cumulative Exergy Loss (TCExL) has been used to assess several systems for electricity production, ie, a coal-fired power plant, a coal-fired power plant including carbon capture and storage, a biomass-fired power plant, an offshore wind farm and a photovoltaic park. The results of the TCExL method have been compared with an environmental sustainability indicator, ie, the overall ReCiPe endpoint indicator and the economic indicator named Present Worth Ratio. The offshore wind farm is the best system from the exergetic and environmental point of view. The photovoltaic park is the system with the second-best scores. However, from the economic viewpoint including subsidy by the Dutch government, the photovoltaic park performs better than the wind farm system and the system that performs best is the biomass-fired power plant. Without subsidy, only the coal-fired power plant without carbon capture and storage is profitable. The exergetic sustainability scores of the coal-fired and biomass-fired power plants are similar, but from the environmental sustainability viewpoint, the biomass-fired power plant performs better than both coal-fired power plants. As the results of environmental and economic sustainability assessments strongly depend on models, weighting factors, subsidy, market prices, etc, while the results of the exergetic sustainability assessment do not, it is recommended that the exergetic sustainability be taken into account when assessing the sustainability of power generation and other technological systems.
KW - Exergy
KW - Fossil energy
KW - Power generation
KW - Renewable energy
KW - Sustainability
UR - http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:a41cee9a-e9f0-46ce-b2c9-e481c0309203
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85045387414&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1002/er.4037
DO - 10.1002/er.4037
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85045387414
SN - 0363-907X
VL - 42
SP - 2916
EP - 2926
JO - International Journal of Energy Research
JF - International Journal of Energy Research
IS - 9
ER -