CO2 emission from the electricity sector in Iran; calculation, prediction and reduction policies

Abstract

Fossil fuel power plants produce a significant amount of CO2 emissions, and this pollutant causes global warming, respiratory and heart diseases, and other significant issues. Electricity interprets as a primary and rising demand in each energy system; thus, in this paper, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduction was selected as the objective value for 2025. Power plant fuel consumption was surveyed to calculate the CO2 emission caused by each fuel. Also, Esfahan province (an industrial province in Iran) was investigated as the study case. Forecasting the fuel consumption for 2025 was run by two parameters: population and Gross Domestic Production (GDP), which were forecasted by the report of the Iran Statics Center and the Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) method, respectively. The CO2 emission of power plants was obtained using the coefficients of each fuel. Based on Iran's commitment to the Paris Agreement, a 4% reduction of CO2 emissions is the main objective. Thus, this study aims to reach this goal by implementing four scenarios: a) adding renewable energies, b) adding renewable energies and improving the generation efficiency, c) adding renewable energies and decreasing the grid losses, and d) combining the three scenarios mentioned above. According to these scenarios, reformation strategies compensated 10.5% of the required power, which was satisfied by renewable energies, and finally, this province can gradually satisfy a 4% reduction until 2025.