Real Time Monitoring of Environmental Efficiency of Power Plants

Today total environmental impacts of power production are a subject of emerging interest. Operation of power plants presents direct and indirect impacts to the environment. Direct impacts consist of instant emissions due to the operation of power plants and indirect impacts are originated from the production and transportation of fuels and waste handling. The direct emissions are monitored with Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (CEMS) but indirect Life Cycle Impacts (LCI) are typically assessed only once during the design phase of process properties such as applied combustion technology and fuels. This paper introduces a procedure for a real time monitoring of total environmental impacts of power plants. The monitoring system aggregates direct and indirect impacts as a total environmental efficiency of the power plant. The procedure can be used e.g. for designing the environmentally friendly operation strategy for the power plant and sustainable purchasing of fuels. This project is a part of the MMEA (Measurement Monitoring and Environmental Assessment) research program coordinated by CLEEN Ltd and funded by the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation TEKES.