Life cycle assessment of a cleaner supercritical coal-fired power plant

Abstract

The energy mix of developing countries is dominated by fossilized energy resources. As such technological improvements for cleaner power generation and better environmental performance are crucial. Power generation by coal also causes many environmental externalities, which requires comprehensive scientific analysis to develop appropriate cleaner production measures for ecological and energy conservations. A cleaner coal-fired power plant at Sahiwal, Pakistan has been recently installed and started electricity generation under a bilateral economic initiative known as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project. This study is aimed to analyse the life cycle impacts of process stages (material and coal transportation, and plant operations) of this coal-fired power plant. Functional unit of 1 MWh of electricity generated has been selected to depict the results, which reveal highest impact score in the climate change potential category (7.41E+02 kg CO2 eq.) whereas, least impact was noted in stratospheric ozone depletion category (8.27E-08 kg CFC11 eq.) The operational stage of the plant has been a major impact contributor in all the selected midpoint categories except for human toxicity potential. Overall, this power plant is effectively reducing its eco-footprint because of cleaner supercritical power generation technology, high thermal efficiency, lesser CO2 emissions and modern pollution monitoring and management system. Real-time scientific cleaner energy-management as presented in this study can help in the development of optimal policy framework to steer cleaner coal power generation in developing countries for a greater energy sustainability.