Development of an Open-Source Life Cycle Baseline for Electricity Consumption in the U.S. - LCAXVIII
This work was presented at the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment (ACLCA) LCAXVIII Conference in Fort Collins, CO on September 25, 2018. EPA, NETL, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) collaborated to develop an open source multifunctional life cycle model to quantify baseline life cycle impacts of U.S. electricity consumption. This presentation discusses the steps that NETL is taking in development of Phase II of the electricity baseline. Specifically, NETL is expanding the spatiotemporal granularity to provide results at multiple levels of aggregation ranging from individual fossil facilities to the aggregated U.S. grid. Phase II will differentiate by individual technologies within fuel types as well as by function in the grid (baseload, cycling, load following, peaking). The supply chain inventory will be expanded with full access to the entire models.