ecoinvent Forum Archive

Hello, 

Could someone please explain me what accounts for water consumption in 'hydropower caused by run-of-water'? In the eco-invent process of producing 1kWh of electricity from the run-of-river powerplant, it requires 45m^3 of water for turbine use. Why is it assumed that the water is consumed here? 

In the run-of-river plant, isn't the natural flow of water used to run the turbine? And how is the water consumption justified here?

Thanks in advance :)

Have a great day 

Dear praneeth.annam,

In the hydro run-of-river dataset you mention, you should see both an exchange FromEnvironment "Water, turbine use, unspecified natural origin" representing an uptake of 45m3 water per kWh and an exchange ToEnvironment "Water", representing the release of the same amount of water back to the environment. This means, effectively no water is consumed here, only used to win its kinetic energy.

Kind regards,
Florentine Brunner
Data Analyst, ecoinvent Association

Hello Florentine,

Thanks for replying to my query. 

I actually don't see any 'exchange to the environment' in the process. I attached a screenshot of the process for your reference. Please take a look at it and let me know if I am missing anything. 

I observed this trend in an LCA that I am conducting in a metal bottle production. I see that the major contributor to water consumption comes from 'electricity, hydropower, run-of-river'. I am confused to see such high water usage if effectively no water is consumed in this process. Please let me know if I have to do anything here

Thanks in advance

Regards,

Praneeth  

Dear Praneeth,

mind that what you are looking at is not an activity of the ecoinvent Database, but of the US EI data pool. This is a data pool, which was originally built based on a set of datasets from the ecoinvent Database but is independent and not managed or maintained by us, the ecoinvent Association. Therefore, I am afraid we cannot help you with the question about this specific dataset.
All datasets in the ecoinvent Database for electricity production from hydropower, run-of-river, in the US are water balanced.

Kind regards,

Florentine Brunner

Data Analyst, ecoinvent Association

Thanks for the clarification, Florentine :)