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electricitymaps / electricitymaps-contrib

A real-time visualisation of the CO2 emissions of electricity consumption
https://app.electricitymaps.com
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
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Refine CO2 intensity figures by accounting for fixed vs. variable gCO2/kWh #237

Closed brunolajoie closed 7 years ago

brunolajoie commented 7 years ago

Currently, CO2 intensity figures by power plant (in gCO2eq/kWh) that we use are lifecycle emission factors, so that emission embedded in the manufacturing of the plant are taken into account. Therefore, we should not assign the value 0 to the CO2 intensity of a power plant that is not producing - instead one should divide lifecycle emissions figures between the operational part (related to fuel) and the manufacturing & installation part, in order to correct our real-time emissions figure accordingly.

Current lifecycle dataset does not differentiate Operational from Manufacturing emission intensity and comes from "IPCC Working Group III – Mitigation of Climate Change, Annex III: Technology - specific cost and performance parameters" (PDF). IPCC. 2014. p. 10. Retrieved 1 August 2014.

ThierryOllivero commented 7 years ago

I don't understand you point. We use gCO2eq/kWh, so if a plant is not producing, the value is 0. Since no kWh are produced.

If we were counting gCO2eq/h or gCO2eq/y, then maybe we could say that idle plants are still emitting some CO2, but still it does not seem particularly true.

The values we use from IPCC are a good compromise between showing only marginal (fuel) and showing total LCE. Unless you believe we should only show emissions for the operational part?

brunolajoie commented 7 years ago

After giving it a second thought, I think you are right. It seems a good compromise, which, anyway, might not change drastically the relative emission intensity of each countries.

ThierryOllivero commented 7 years ago

Should we keep the issue open then?

tezellis commented 7 years ago

Unless you believe we should only show emissions for the operational part?

Is this something that has been considered? Having a marginal/LC toggle would allow users to decide (but maybe that is too confusing).

corradio commented 7 years ago

@brunolajoie is this still being considered? I recommend closing if we do not plan to work on this in the near future

brunolajoie commented 7 years ago

Not in the near future indeed!