Life cycle assessment of foreign coal based and natural gas based thermal power plants: comparative study
Student name: Mr Sunil Dahiya
Guide: Dr Suresh Jain
Year of completion: 2012
Host Organisation: Lanco Infratech Limited, Gurgaon, Haryana
Supervisor (Host Organisation): Mr Kuldeep Agarwal
Abstract: High rate of industrial and population growth has resulted in an increasing demand of
electricity. The gap between demand and supply of electricity has widened in the recent past. In
the Indian condition, there are still many villages and habitations that don’t have access to
electricity. These points highlight the need for expansion of electricity generation sector at a fast
pace to provide electricity to all. But, before expanding the sector, environmentally and
economically sustainable technologies have to be found out from the available options. Life
Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one such tool that can help in finding out environmentally sustainable
technology. The LCA of three power generation technologies (coal-fired without FGD, coal-fired
with FGD and combined cycle natural gas) is performed in the current study using Sima pro7.3.3
software developed by Pre Consultants, Netherlands, for determination of environmentally
sustainable technology option. CML 2001 (problem oriented) and Eco-Indicator 99 (H) (damage
oriented) methods available in the software are used in the current study to analyze all three
systems for impacts on Human health and Ecosystem quality. Analysis of results from the study
shows that natural gas based TPPs seem to be the most environmentally sustainable option for
power generation when compared to coal based TPPs with and without FGD. In case of TPP
with FGD and without FGD, the one with FGD is favoured over the other option due to lesser
impacts on ecosystem and human health.
Keywords: Electricity, sustainable, life cycle assessment, human health,
ecosystem quality.
