Integrating TIMES and life cycle assessment models

1. Integration of TIMES and life cycle
assessment (LCA) models
Miguel F. Astudillo (U. Sherbrooke)
Kathleen Vaillancourt (Esmia Consultants Inc.)
Pierre-Olivier Pineau (HEC Montreal)
Ben Amor (U. Sherbrooke)
ETSAP workshop 2018

2. Life cycle assessment in a nutshell
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Advantages of integration:
1. Complete and consistent
inventory of emissions.
2. Comprehensive env.
Indicators
1. Human health
2. Biodiversity loss
3. Water scarcity …
• Inventories materials and energy flows
• Impact assessment methods (e.g. GWP)
= Environmental indicators
Car (LCA)
Car
(TIMES)
Purpose: Quantify the environmental
impact of good or service.
CC BY
e.g. : 1 pkm of large diesel car

3. Past attempts and problems:
- NEEDS project
- Menten et al 2015
- Garcia-Gusano et al 2016a
- Garcia-Gusano et al 2016b
- Volkart et al. 2017
- …
• Forthcoming:
- Reflex EU project
- Store&Go EU project
- Reem project
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Problems:
- Incomplete mapping : TIMES models
have many process to match manually.
- Biased models if LCA data affects
the objective function.
- Inconsistent datasets: efficiency,
emission factors …
- Double counting: e.g. energy services
for industry, freight transport etc.
Astudillo et al. 2018

4. How to simplify: Focus on the
‘relevant’ changes in the RES
Only include Life cycle emissions of the
processes that emit most of the GHGe
Assumption: operating GHG emissions are
correlated with other environmental impacts
(Kalbar et al. 2017)
In LCA jargon : cut-off criterion
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TIMES LCA
Requires
complete
mapping

5. Research question:
NATEM (North American TIMES E.
Model:
TIMES model: NATEM-Quebec
GHG from fuel combustion.
2700 + technologies
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What is the potential life-cycle
environmental Impact of a
climate change mitigation
policy in Quebec ?
Baseline:
Counterfactual: baseline + GHG constraint

6. Cut-off : changes in CO2eq emissions
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cut-off criterion: only
include the processes that
explain x % of absolute
changes in GHG (according
to a TIMES model)
N º processes affected by GHGe mitigation
policy in Quebec
0% = 603 processes
10% = 59 processes
A few processes are
enough to explain most of
the (needed) changes

7. cut-off effectiveness in different scenarios
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Similar effectiveness
of cut-off in different
scenarios

8. cut-off problem : Are CO2eq emissions a good
screening indicator?
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9. Non-CO2 intensive ‘relevant’ process
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Some processes should be
included regardless their
contribution to GHG.
How: Meta-analysis of LCA
database.
Which: Nuclear, biomass
combustion, heat-pumps
Ratio of Impact 2002+ endpoint scores to CC
scores for key Swiss processes
𝑁𝑜𝑛𝐶𝐶 𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒
𝐶𝐶 𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒
≫ 1

10. Inconsistent parameters
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TIMES represent future energy
systems, LCI of existing ones.
Potentially different emission
factors.
Harmonisation step:
Update LCA databases with
parameters from TIMES
model

11. Inconsistent parameters: comparing EF
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Fuel combustion emission
factors (CO2,N2O and CH4)
- Canadian inventory of
GHG
- Ecoinvent v3.4 (reference
LCA database).
Notable differences in coal
and natural gas. For the rest,
no need to adapt.

12. Summary of workflow
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1) Create baseline and counterfactual scenario in TIMES
2) Identify processes to be included in the LCI:
1) Apply Cut-off: contribution to changes in CO2eq
2) Add non-CO2 “relevant” processes
3) Harmonise parameters
4) Impact assessment

13. Implementation : reproducible
workflows
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Notebook integrating:
- Live code
- Documentation
(equation, figures,
text)
Integration tool build
in python
Results by the end of the year !

14. Some results: Operation CO2,CH4, N2O vs the
rest
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15. References
• Astudillo, M.F., Vaillancourt, K., Pineau, P.-O., Amor, B., 2017. Can the household sector reduce global
warming mitigation costs? sensitivity to key parameters in a TIMES techno-economic energy model. Appl.
Energy 205, 486–498. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.07.130
• Astudillo, M.F., Vaillancourt, K., Pineau, P.-O., Amor, B., n.d. Integrating energy system models in life cycle
management, in: Benetto, E., Gericke, K. (Eds.), Designing Sustainable Technologies, Products and Policies.
Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
• García-Gusano, D., Garraín, D., Dufour, J., 2016a. Prospective life cycle assessment of the Spanish electricity
production. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 75, 21–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.10.045
• García-Gusano, D., Iribarren, D., Martín-Gamboa, M., Dufour, J., Espegren, K., Lind, A., 2016b. Integration of
life-cycle indicators into energy optimisation models: The case study of power generation in Norway. J.
Clean. Prod. 112, 2693–2696. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.10.075
• Menten, F.M., Tchung-ming, S., Lorne, D., Bouvart, F., 2015. Lessons from the use of a long-term energy
model for consequential life cycle assessment : the BTL case. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 43, 942–960.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2014.11.072
• Volkart, K., Weidmann, N., Bauer, C., Hirschberg, S., 2017. Multi-criteria decision analysis of energy system
transformation pathways: A case study for Switzerland. Energy Policy 106, 155–168.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.03.026
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16. Thanks for listening !
Questions?
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https://xkcd.com/1256/