In 2011, co-working with DuPont (former Danisco), 2.-0 LCA consultants initiated an electricity project with the aim of establishing consequential life cycle inventories on electricity in different countries. The project was established as a subscription club administrated by 2.-0 LCA consultants. One of the outcomes of the project was this report.
Version 3.0 provides country- and region-specific consequential electricity inventories, with a functional unit of 1 kWh and results for different stages of the electricity supply system. The report defines three scenario options. The future consequential mix reflects planned or projected capacity changes from 2008 to 2020; the historical mix uses observed changes from 2000 to 2008; and a separate scenario represents electricity generated entirely from coal. The consequential approach aims to represent unconstrained suppliers most likely to respond to a change in demand. It screens out constrained technologies and avoids co-product allocation through substitution. The inventories are designed to be linked with background life cycle inventory data, including ecoinvent, and used in LCA software.
The authors recommend the future scenario as the default for LCA studies and the historical scenario for sensitivity analysis. Future projections can be more uncertain, while the historical scenario is grounded in statistics but does not capture the effects of new technologies and policies. Results therefore depend on the selected scenario and its assumptions. The report also identifies challenges in determining electricity co-produced with heat. It presents inventory methods and selected climate-change results, rather than a fully reviewed LCA of a specific product. Users should select the scenario that matches the decision question and interpret the figures within these stated boundaries.
