Energy Consumption Impacts (B6)

In the One Click LCA database, the impacts of electricity and district heat have been calculated using the energy production fuel mixes provided for each country by IEA (International Energy Agency). Specifically the Data and Statistics section. 

Impacts of generic fuels

The impacts of the fuels (both production and exhaust) have been modelled based on the Ecoinvent 3.3 -database. IPCC Guidelines (Gómez & Watterson 2006) and Emission Inventory Guidebook (Trozzi 2010) have also been used to complement the exhaust emission data.

Impacts of electricity mixes

The impacts of the electricity mix are calculated using the obtained fuel mixes and the impacts of the different fuels and using the output of energy as the denominator, thus resulting in impacts per kWh of energy. Find the latest production fuel mix for heat and electricity here. Insert your country to find a suitable dataset. Exceptions to data sourced from IEA are:

• Country-specific electricity mixes (e.g. decarbonization scenarios, multi-year scenarios or emission factors for certain cities). Emissions for such resources are based on their reported values. Examples are the Finnish or Estonian electricity mixes.
• Data for Canada is sourced from STATCAN data
• Data for the United States is sourced from EIA.gov

Impacts of district heating 

Generic district heating (for an entire country) production fuel mixes are sourced from IEA. Specific data is available for a number of countries, e.g. for the Nordic countries we calculate these using the below sources. 

• Finland - Kaukolämpötilasto
• Norway - Norsk Fjernvarme.no
• Sweden - Energi Foretagen

Impacts of district cooling

District cooling is not relevant for the majority of countries, however, there is a selection of data available for Finland which is sourced from local sources (Statistics Finland, Energiateollisuus and Rakennusten vähähiilisyyden arviointimenetelmä)

Finnish electricity impacts

Finnish electricity impacts have been calculated using data from IEA & Statistics Finland (2021). The data includes the used fuel mixes, imported energy, as well as production output and transmission losses. The impacts of heat from Finnish district heating plants have been calculated based on Kaukolämpötilasto or (Energiateollisuus 2017a), which provides statistics for each district heating plant in Finland. The statistics include fuel mixes as well as provided district heating and losses. The chosen district heat supplier provides heat to the plant/area and was thus chosen to represent the impacts of used heat.

Data cards for energy impacts

The best way to find out the emission factors and sources of energy resources is to check the data card, specifically the 'datapoint background information' tab. Clicking on the green question mark always opens the data card which displays a variety of information including the source and emission factors.