ecoinvent Forum Archive

Dear All,I'm glad to join here.I have a question about how to consider renewable energy such as Green Pricing. As you know RE has an environmental load when it produces or building material operating the facility.However, some of my client, when we discuss on carbon-neutral, they usually figure out of the electricity load as "0".I think there are gaps between point of view on LCA and GHG accounting(scope1&2). to slove this issues, one of my colleague suggest if we apply "Consequential Life Cycle Assessment" point, RE would be regarded as "0".

is it true?? is there any idea for these ??thanks you in advance :)Best

Dear Lee,

The way we understand GHG scope 2 and 3 reporting (from the point of view of the end consumer of electricity) is that scope 2 only includes emissions from the combustion of fuels to generate electricity purchased and consumed by the reporting company. Not included in scope 2 but in included in scope 3 are transmission and distribution losses as well as upstream emissions of the purchased electricity (i.e. emissions related to extraction, production, and transportation of fuels consumed in the generation of electricity that is consumed by the reporting company). So while some renewable energy technologies might have 0 scope 2 emissions, they still have scope 3 emissions associated with them. Please be aware, that at the moment the ecoinvent database does not distinguish between scope 2 and 3 emissions (i.e. the LCIA score of a datasets includes both). We are working on a split of scope 2 and 3 emissions for electricity which we are planning to publish with the next release (in September). In the consequential system model, renewable energies have an impact. Please have a look here for more information on the consequential system model.

I hope this helps.

Nora Minas, data analyst, ecoinvent