Life Cycle Inventories (LCI) for Off-grid Hybrid Energy Systems using Photovoltaics, Batteries, and Hydrogen Storage

This dataset is a collection of life cycle inventories (LCI) / activity datasets for calculating the environmental impact of an off-grid hybrid energy system in Chile. Different energy system setups are compared which can contain diesel generators, photovoltaic (PV) panels, lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries and/or hydrogen energy storage.

In PV production, we refer to Frischknecht et al. (2020)’s LCIs. This includes the production of PV cells, made from silicon wafers based on Czochralski single silicon crystals. PV modules are formed by connecting multiple PV cells. Regarding Li-ion batteries, we relied on Porzio and Scown (2021)’s LCI, which included a LiFePO₄-based cathode and a graphite-based anode. Additionally, we employed Quan et al. (2022)’s inventories for the production of LiFePO₄ from lithium carbonate and iron phosphate. 

In the hydrogen system, LCIs are based on Koj et al. (2017) for the alkaline electrolyzer with a Zirkon membrane, on Boureima et al. (2011) and Wulf et al. (2018) for the steel-based compressed gas hydrogen storage tank, and on Notter et al. (2015) and Weber et al. (2018) for the proton-exchange membrane fuel cell with a Nafion membrane.

These datasets were curated for the specific case of building an energy system to supply an off-grid telescope in the Atacama desert, Chile, to be built in 2030. We incorporate specific temporal and country-specific power mixes for production locations next to transportation pathways from these to the energy system area in Chile.

PROCESS FLOW
Scenario setup

List of the unit processes:

Functional unit:

Deliver power to the telescope according to the demand forecasted, 7.99GWh/year over 25 years.

Installed capacities and generated power from the Energy System Optimization Model highRES-AtLAST:

For more detailed description of the setup of this dataset, refer to Viole et al. (2023): Sustainable Astronomy: A comparative Life Cycle Assessment of Off-grid Hybrid Energy Systems to supply large Telescopes, https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3281965/v2