Dear Alicia,
In many cases the lifetimes are not directly reported in the electricity production datasets, but in the production datasets of the power plant. For many, the lifetime can be found in one of the comments, in the properties or in the accompanying report. For instance:
electricity production, natural gas, 10MW: Uses a “gas turbine, 10MW electrical”. The dataset “gas turbine construction, 10MW electrical” reports a lifetime of 80’000 h. In section 12.1 of the ecoinvent v2 report “06_V_Erdgas.pdf” more detail is given on the gas turbine construction.
heat and power co-generation, natural gas, 160kW electrical, Jakobsberg (electricity only): This dataset does have a generating unit with a single lifetime. In fact, it uses different components with different lifetimes. Details on this are reported in v2 report “06_XIV_Waermekraftkopplung.pdf”.
electricity production, natural gas, conventional power plant: Uses a “gas power plant, 100MW electrical”. Here the lifetime (180’000h) is again reported in the production dataset “gas power plant construction, 100MW electrical” and further detail can be found in section 11.2 of v2 report “06_V_Erdgas.pdf”.
Ecoinvent v2 reports can be accessed by login in to Version 2 of the database here and selecting the reports tab.
I hope this answers your question, otherwise come back to us.
Best regards,
Johannes Müller, Junior Data Analyst, ecoinvent Association