Gate to Gate Life Cycle Assessment Coal Power Plant in Indonesia

Abstract

Global electricity is mainly supplied by coal as the main fuel, representing about 40%. Even the renewable energy portion is increasing in a developing country. Coal is still the majority as the main fuel of power plant because of abundant availability and low price that makes energy production cost becomes cheap. Besides its advantages, coal also contributes most of the emissions from the power generation sector. The International Energy Agency (IEA) states that in 2019 emissions of electricity sector contribute to 33% of the global sulfur dioxide (SO2), 14% of the nitrogen oxides (NOx), and 5% particulate matter 2.5 (PM2.5). Coal-fired power plants generate 75% of SO2, 70% of NOx, and over 90% of its PM2.5 emissions. The implementation of Life cycle assessment in this research contained in ISO-14040 and ISO-14044. The four LCA steps are goal and scope definition, life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis, life cycle impact assessment (LCIA), and interpretation. One of the typical LCA gate to gate LCA method is used to calculate the global warming potential and acidification potential with the parameter of ton CO2-eq/ GWh and ton-SO2 eq/ GWh. The object of this research is emphasized in the study on one of the biggest coal power plants in Indonesia with unit size 300 MW, which are using medium calory coal for its fuel. The result is the power plant global warming potential is 800-ton CO2 eq/ GWh and Acidification Potential (AP) is 0.6-ton SO2 eq/ GWh. The novelty in this research was to create a database of emissions per electricity produce from a coal power plant in Indonesia. From the database, people can clearly understand the condition of energy production of coal power plant in Indonesia and comparing with another coal power plant in the world.