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7C - Role of environmental science in influencing sustainable development (WE7/12) Integrating LCA and comprehensive models approaches for the strategic planning of local energy systems. Cosmi, C.1, 2, Macchiato, M.2, 3, Marmo, G.1, 3, Pietrapertosa, F.1, 4, Salvia, M.1, 1 Istituto di Metodologie per l’Analisi Ambientale, CNR, Tito Scalo (PZ), Italy2 Istituto Nazionale per la Fisica della Materia, Napoli, Italy3 Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Università Federico II, Italy4 Università della Basilicata, Potenza, Italy ABSTRACT- Energy use and production are by far the most important source of atmospheric pollutants and represent a key sector on the road to sustainability. Nevertheless, energy systems are highly complex structures in which energy and material flows are connected by articulate technologies networks. There is therefore a strong need of tools for broad scope analyses aimed to find out environmental and cost-efficient solutions as well as to initiate a learning process for decision makers and energy system actors. MARKAL, a comprehensive models generator developed since the '80s under the aegis of the International Energy Agency, is widely used to represent energy systems and their related boundary conditions with an engineering bottom-up approach. Energy and technology development are described by a multi-period flexible data-input and the optimising procedure selects the cheapest combination of technologies and fuels that fulfil all the exogenous constraints. On the other hand, LCA compares the environmental performance of alternative products (or services) for meeting the same end-use function. It provides modellers with a complete description of all the burdens connected to the life cycle of products but, typically, it doesn't enable the choice of the best compromise solution, which can be made by performing a multicriteria decision analysis. The integration between LCA and comprehensive models can represent a strength point for handling more properly environmental issues in strategic energy environmental planning, representing an effective tool to carry out operative strategies. Key words: energy systems, Strategic planning, MARKAL, LCA |
