Calculate the Electricity Carbon Factor for a Digital Factory¶
This example shows how to calculate the Electricity Carbon Factor for a manufacturing facility, for which aP Pro has a Digital Factory.
Electricity Process Carbon is the primary source of process carbon based on an Energy Carbon Factor and energy consumption. The Energy Carbon Factor data in aP Pro is provided by Ecoinvent and is calculated at the Digital Factory level for an individual country or region that is supported by aPriori.
Each aPriori Digital Factory has an Electricity Carbon Factor that is based on the electricity grid mix in its region. If you have an Energy Carbon Factor that is more representative for the exact location or energy supply of your manufacturing facility, you can improve the accuracy of energy consumption calculations by updating the value in your Digital Factory.
For example, if you have a manufacturing facility in your home country, and you have a digital twin of that facility in aP Pro, you can calculate the Electricity Carbon Factor for that manufacturing facility's location. You can then add the Electricity Carbon Factor to aP Pro.
Note:
Electricity Carbon Factor or Energy Carbon Factor In Digital Factory settings, you can edit the Electricity Carbon Factor. Elsewhere in aP Pro, the Electricity Carbon Factor is often referred to as the Energy Carbon Factor.
Procedure¶
To calculate an overall Energy Carbon Factor for a mix of electricity supply technologies:
- To calculate a factor for each separate supply technology, multiply the median lifecycle emissions of each technology by its percentage contribution to the electricity grid.
- To calculate an overall Energy Carbon Factor, sum all the individual factors.
Example Energy Carbon Factor calculation¶
For example, this table shows an example of an Energy Carbon Factor calculation for an electricity grid with six separate supply technologies.
The first data row in the table is for the Coal energy production method. The Energy Carbon Factor for Coal is calculated as 820 kg CO2e/kWh * 0.25. The resulting energy carbon factor is added to the resulting energy carbon factors for all the other rows to produce a total Energy Carbon Factor of 334.7 kg CO2e/kWh.
| Energy Production method. Data based on Global Warming Potential IPCC 2014 |
Lifecycle emissions (median value)* (kg CO2e / kWh) |
Percentage contribution to electricity grid | Energy Carbon Factor |
| Coal - PC | 820 | 25 % | 205 |
| Gas - combined cycle | 490 | 25 % | 122.5 |
| Biomass - dedicated | 230 | - | 0 |
| Solar PV - utility scale | 48 | 10 % | 4.8 |
| Solar PV - rooftop | 41 | - | 0 |
| Geothermal | 38 | - | 0 |
| Concentrated solar power | 27 | - | 0 |
| Hydropower | 24 | 5 % | 1.2 |
| Wind offshore | 12 | 5 % | 0.6 |
| Nuclear | 12 | 5 % | 0.6 |
| Wind onshore | 11 | - | 0 |
| Energy Carbon Factor | 334.7 |
* The Lifecycle Emissions (median value) also includes the fraction of light that a surface reflects.