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Comparison of life cycle performance of distributed energy system and conventional energy system for district heating and cooling in China

中国集中供热和制冷用分布式能源系统与常规能源系统生命周期的性能比较研究

  • Building Thermal Environment and Energy Conservation
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Abstract

The distributed energy system has achieved significant attention in respect of its application for single-building cooling and heating. Researching on the life cycle environmental impact of distributed energy systems (DES) is of great significance to encourage and guide the development of DES in China. However, the environmental performance of distributed energy systems in a building cooling and heating has not yet been carefully analyzed. In this study, based on the standards of ISO14040-2006 and ISO14044-2006, a life-cycle assessment (LCA) of a DES was conducted to quantify its environmental impact and a conventional energy system (CES) was used as the benchmark. GaBi 8 software was used for the LCA. And the Centre of Environmental Science (CML) method and Eco-indicator 99 (EI 99) method were used for environmental impact assessment of midpoint and endpoint levels respectively. The results indicated that the DES showed a better life-cycle performance in the usage phase compared to the CES. The life-cycle performance of the DES was better than that of the CES both at the midpoint and endpoint levels in view of the whole lifespan. It is because the CES to DES indicator ratios for acidification potential, eutrophication potential, and global warming potential are 1.5, 1.5, and 1.6, respectively at the midpoint level. And about the two types of impact indicators of ecosystem quality and human health at the endpoint level, the CES and DES ratios of the other indicators are greater than 1 excepting the carcinogenicity and ozone depletion indicators. The human health threat for the DES was mainly caused by energy consumption during the usage phase. A sensitivity analysis showed that the climate change and inhalable inorganic matter varied by 1.3% and 6.1% as the electricity increased by 10%. When the natural gas increased by 10%, the climate change and inhalable inorganic matter increased by 6.3% and 3.4%, respectively. The human health threat and environmental damage caused by the DES could be significantly reduced by the optimization of natural gas and electricity consumption.

摘要

分布式能源系统在单栋建筑制冷供热方面的应用受到高度重视,研究分布式能源系统的生命周期环境影响,对鼓励和引导中国分布式能源系统的发展具有重要意义。然而,关于分布式能源系统在建筑制冷供热过程中的环境性能全面分析的研究较少。本研究基于ISO14040-2006 和ISO14044-2006 标准,对分布式能源系统(DES)进行生命周期评价(LCA),以常规能源系统(CES)为基准,量化其环境影响。采用GaBi 8 软件进行生命周期评价。采用环境科学中心(CML)法和生态指数99(EI 99)法分别进行中点水平和终点水平的环境影响评价。结果表明:与CES 相比,DES 在使用阶段表现出更好的生命周期性能; 在中点水平上,酸化潜力、富营养化潜力和全球变暖潜力的CES 与DES 指标比值分别为1.5、1.5 和1.6,终点水平的生态系统质量和人类健康两类影响指标中,除致癌性和臭氧消耗指标外,CES和DES 其他指标的比值均大于1,即从整个生命周期来看,DES 的生命周期性能在中点和端点水平均优于CES; DES 对人体健康的威胁主要是由于使用阶段的能源消耗造成的。敏感性分析表明,当电量增加10% 时,气候变化和可吸入无机物变化幅度分别为1.3% 和6.1%; 当天然气增加10% 时,气候变化和可吸入无机物分别增加6.3% 和3.4%; 通过天然气和电耗的优化,可以显著降低DES 造成的人类健康威胁和环境破坏。

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Energy Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Chang-rong Liu  (刘畅荣), Han-qing Wang  (王汉青), Zhi-qiang Liu  (刘志强) & Sheng Yang  (杨声)

  2. School of Civil Engineering, Hunan University of Science and Technology, Xiangtan, 411201, China

    Yi-fang Tang  (唐艺芳)

  3. School of Civil Engineering, Central South University of Forestry and Technology, Changsha, 410004, China

    Han-qing Wang  (王汉青)

  4. School of Civil Engineering, Hunan University of Technology, Zhuzhou, 412007, China

    Chao-jun Li  (李朝军) & Wen-ting Jin  (金文婷)

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  1. Chang-rong Liu  (刘畅荣)
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Contributions

The overarching research goals were developed by LIU Chang-rong, WANG Han-qing, and YANG Sheng. LIU Chang-rong and TANG Yifang provided the life-cycle inventory of the system, and analyzed the data. LI Chao-jun and JIN Wenting established the system LCA models. LIU Chang-rong, TANG Yi-fang and YANG Sheng analyzed the LCI results. The initial draft of the manuscript was written by LIU Zhi-qiang, LIU Chang-rong, and TANG Yi-fang. All authors replied to reviewers’ comments and revised the final version.

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Correspondence to Sheng Yang  (杨声).

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Foundation item: Projects(51676209, 22008265) supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China; Projects(2020JJ6072, 2021JJ50007) supported by the Hunan Province Natural Science Foundation, China

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Liu, Cr., Tang, Yf., Wang, Hq. et al. Comparison of life cycle performance of distributed energy system and conventional energy system for district heating and cooling in China. J. Cent. South Univ. 29, 2357–2376 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11771-022-5073-y

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