Page 87 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

82 4. Life cycle sustainability assessment: An ongoing journey

TABLE 4.4 Ranking of electricity technologies with different preferences in
Greece (Roinioti and Koroneos, 2019).
Priority given to:
Electricity Equal Environmental Economic Social
technology weights aspect aspect aspect
Lignite 7 7 6 6
CCGT 6 6 3 7
Large hydro 3 3 5 5
Small hydro 2 2 2 3
Wind 1 1 1 2
PV 4 4 7 1
Biomass/biogas 5 5 4 4

efficiency operation time, lifetime, and average plant capacity size) were adjusted to reflect
the country’s conditions. Data on the cost of electricity generation was obtained from industry
studies and the rate of discount was assumed to be 10%. Integration of the sustainability pil-
lars to support the evaluation and selection of alternatives was performed with multiattribute
value theory (MAVT) using the multicriteria decision support software, Web-HIPRE V1.22.
All the sustainability pillars were given equal weighting (0.33) because stakeholder prefer-
ences were not considered. The electricity generation technologies were ranked based on their
sustainability score. The technology with the highest score was considered more sustainable.
Similarly, different weightings (five times more important, 0.714) were assigned to each of the
sustainability pillars. The ranking of the technologies with different preferences is shown in
Table 4.4.
From the assessment, wind energy was found to be more sustainable followed by small
hydropower plants for equal weights and when priority was given to the environmental
and economic criteria. In terms of social aspects as preference, photovoltaics were more sus-
tainable followed by wind and small hydropower. Fossil fuel options (CCGT and lignite
plants) were the least preferred, even though CCGT ranked third when preference was given
to the economic aspects. The authors recommended an increase of the share of energy from
renewable sources (wind, hydropower, and photovoltaics) whilst reducing fossil fuel electric-
ity options (CCGT and lignite plants).

4.4.7.4 Electricity generation systems in Portugal
Similarly, LCSA methodology was used by Kabayo et al. (2019) to assess and compare six
main electricity generation systems (coal, natural gas, small hydro, large hydro, wind, and
ground mounted photovoltaic (PV)) operating in Portugal from 2012 to 2016. It was assumed
that all coal fuel was sourced from Columbia, while natural gas originated from Algeria (45%
via pipeline) and Nigeria (55% by shipping). The choice of 5-year (2012–16) period for assess-
ment was to account for the variation in generation and related environmental, economic, and