Unit exergy cost and specific CO2 emissions of the electricity generation in the Netherlands

Pablo Silva Ortiz, Daniel Flórez-Orrego, Silvio de Oliveira Junior, Rubens Maciel Filho, Patricia Osseweijer and John Posada

Energy, 2020, vol. 208, issue C

Abstract: Exergy and environmental analyses have been developed to determine the performance of the electricity generation in the Dutch mix. A comparative assessment of diverse technological routes, including fossil and renewable energy resources consumption, is carried out in terms of the exergy costs and specific CO2 emissions. Hence, an exergoeconomy methodology is used to properly allocate the renewable and non-renewable exergy costs and specific CO2 emissions among the various products of the polygeneration energy systems. By using a suitable methodology, the distribution of irreversibility throughout the different steps of the energy conversion processes of the Dutch electricity mix is characterized in the light of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The results may help to propose performance indicators that support the Dutch government and research institutions. To identify sustainable energy planning strategies and fairly comparing electricity generation and end-use processing stages with other types of energy resources, such as fuels used in transportation, residential and industrial sectors. In brief, the weighted average of the renewable and non-renewable unit exergy costs and the specific CO2 emissions of the electricity generated in each route of the Dutch mix is calculated and compared to another electricity mix with a higher share of renewable energy resources. The weighted average renewable and non-renewable unit exergy costs of the electricity generated in the Netherlands are calculated as cR = 0.8375 kJ/kJE/W and cNR = 1.7180 kJ/kJE/W, respectively (cR/cNR= 0.49). Furthermore, the specific CO2 emissions in the Dutch electricity generation achieve 373.21 gCO2/kWhE/W.

Keywords: Exergy analysis; CO2 emissions; Renewable exergy cost; Non-renewable exergy cost; Dutch electricity mix (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220313864
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:208:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220313864

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.118279

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().