ecoinvent Forum Archive

Hello,

I am trying to model heat from municipal waste incineration using the process "Heat, reuse in municipal waste incineration only {DK} market". the rest of my model is modelled using cut-off processes. So I am using cut-off for the heat process as well. However due to the cut-off methodology, heat comes burden-free, which for my project does not provide a fair representation of the energy system... Of course, if I use the same APOS process, I can see there is a burden. My two questions are:

1. Is there a way to understand how the burden allocation is carried out for this specific process (Heat, reuse in municipal waste incineration) under APOS?

2. Can it be considered okay to use one APOS process in a model that is otherwise cut-off? Or is it simply not considered an acceptbale practice (I cannot find anyting on this in the litterature)?

Any idea that would help providing a "fair" (i.e. not null) representation of heat from waste and that would not involve switching my entire model to APOS is welcome :).

Many thanks.

Bryan

Dear Bryan,

Thank you for your question.

You can find more information about how Allocation at the point of Substitution (APOS) is modelled by taking a look here and here. The choice of the system model is usually up to the LCA practitioner depending on different parameters and what needs to be studied. In general, the practise of combining the two system models is not suggested. However, if you approximately known the impact that the heat has, you can create your own dataset and include in your model.

Best regards,

Nikolia Stoikou, Junior Data Analyst, ecoinvent association