Life Cycle Assessment of an Electric Chiller Integrated with a Large District Cooling Plant

Abstract

District cooling (DC) systems have recently proven to be more economically and environmentally viable as compared to conventional cooling techniques. In most DC setups, electric centrifugal chillers (ECCs) are installed to provide chilled water (CW) to charge the thermal energy storage (TES) tank or for direct CW supply to the DC network. The operation of these ECC systems consumes most of the electrical power supplied to the entire DC plant; this therefore strengthens the need to conduct a comprehensive environmental assessment in order to quantify the indirect ecological impact resulting from the energy consumed in the ECC system operation. In order to achieve this, a case study was conducted of four ECC systems with a use-life of 25 years installed in a large DC plant in Malaysia. A gate-to-gate life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology was adopted to analyze the environmental performance of the system setup. The result of the study year reveals that April and June account for the highest and lowest environmental impact, respectively. The influence of climatic temperature conditions on the monthly cooling and environmental load distribution was also observed from the results. Finally, in substantiating the study’s investigation, environmental performance based on the composition of two different electricity fuel mixes is discussed and compared. The results revealed a drastic decrease in environmental load as the ratio of non-renewable energy sources decreased in the composition of the mix, thereby reducing the contribution of the overall environmental impact of the ECC systems’ use phase.

Rapid Environmental Assessment of Buildings: Linking Environmental and Cost Estimating Databases

“…The reason for its omission in this research was mainly the lack of data in the Ecoinvent database, or rather the different way of working with the data compared to the building materials. Many studies can be found in the literature that use the Ecoinvent database to calculate the environmental impacts of HVAC systems including the material production phase [47,48], and the authors of this paper have also addressed this topic previously [49]. Linking environmental data with budgeting data for HVAC systems is realistic, but the methods will be very different from those for building materials and will be addressed in future research.…”

Measurement development for eco-innovation capabilities of Malaysian oil and gas firms

“…Furthermore, Salim et al (2019) posit that the ability to offer integrated solutions is a critical capability, as it enables the provision of reliable and rapid responses to changing competitive and environmental landscapes through offering unique solutions at a lower cost and minimum environmental harm. Similarly, Potter and Graham (2019) as well as Huaccho Huatuco et al (2020) concurred that integrating critical stakeholders such as suppliers in solution design enhanced the potential to derive positive outcomes from eco-innovation implementations, particularly as integrated product-service solutions reduced the environmental impact generated across the value creation process and through its life cycle (Hampo et al , 2021). Existing eco-innovation literature has primarily focused on manufacturing sector, and few research articles have focused on eco-innovation application toward other sectors that feature service aspects (Munodawafa and Johl, 2019).…”

“…(2020) concurred that integrating critical stakeholders such as suppliers in solution design enhanced the potential to derive positive outcomes from eco-innovation implementations, particularly as integrated product-service solutions reduced the environmental impact generated across the value creation process and through its life cycle (Hampo et al, 2021). Existing eco-innovation literature has primarily focused on manufacturing sector, and few research articles have focused on eco-innovation application toward other sectors that feature service aspects (Munodawafa and Johl, 2019).…”

Life Cycle Assessment of a Vapor Compression Cooling System Integrated within a District Cooling Plant

“…In various DC facilities, thermal energy storage (TES) systems have been installed to optimize the operation of DC plants and meet the fluctuating demand for the supply of chilled water for air conditioning purposes. Although the vapor compression chiller (VCC) accounts for about 40% of the total electricity supplied to the DC plant [5], studies have shown that integrating the functionalities of VCC and TES into the DC plant leads to a 35% reduction in electricity consumption, compared to conventional DC systems without TES. Different electricity tariffs during various times of the day benefit the integration of TES technology.…”

“…Hampo et al [5] used a gate to gate LCA methodology to analyze the environmental performance of four electric chillers. The authors investigated the environmental performance of the chiller systems based on the composition of the 2020 Malaysia's fuel mix and the proposed optimized electricity mix by 2030.…”