Life Cycle Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions Analysis of Natural Gas-Based Distributed Generation Projects in China

Hansi Liu, Sheng Zhou, Tianduo Peng and Xunmin Ou
Additional contact information
Hansi Liu: Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Sheng Zhou: Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Tianduo Peng: Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
Xunmin Ou: Institute of Energy, Environment and Economy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-14

Abstract: In this paper, we used the life-cycle analysis (LCA) method to evaluate the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of natural gas (NG) distributed generation (DG) projects in China. We took the China Resources Snow Breweries (CRSB) NG DG project in Sichuan province of China as a base scenario and compared its life cycle energy consumption and GHG emissions performance against five further scenarios. We found the CRSB DG project (all energy input is NG) can reduce GHG emissions by 22%, but increase energy consumption by 12% relative to the scenario, using coal combined with grid electricity as an energy input. The LCA also indicated that the CRSB project can save 24% of energy and reduce GHG emissions by 48% relative to the all-coal scenario. The studied NG-based DG project presents major GHG emissions reduction advantages over the traditional centralized energy system. Moreover, this reduction of energy consumption and GHG emissions can be expanded if the extra electricity from the DG project can be supplied to the public grid. The action of combining renewable energy into the NG DG system can also strengthen the dual merit of energy conservation and GHG emissions reduction. The marginal CO 2 abatement cost of the studied project is about 51 USD/ton CO 2 equivalent, which is relatively low. Policymakers are recommended to support NG DG technology development and application in China and globally to boost NG utilization and control GHG emissions.

Keywords: distributed energy system; life-cycle analysis; GHG emissions; natural gas; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/10/1515/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/10/1515/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:10:p:1515-:d:113865

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().