Thermal Power Plants Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Nowadays the global climate change has been a worldwide concern and the greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions are considered as the primary cause of that. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) divided countries into two groups: Annex I Parties and Non-Annex I Parties. Since Iran is among Non- Annex I Parties, it is not required to submit annual GHG inventory report. However, the global climate change is a worldwide phenomenon so Iran as a leading country in the Middle East and one of the biggest producers of oil and natural gas in the world should be involved. So it is necessary to prepare such a report at least unofficially. In this paper, first the terminology and the methods to calculate GHG emissions will be explained and then GHG emissions calculation results for the Iranian power plants will be presented. The results for the Iranian power plants show that in 2005 greenhouse gas intensity for steam power plants, gas turbines and combined cycle power plants are 617, 773, and 462 gCO2eq/kWh, respectively with the overall intensity of 610 gCO2eq/kWh for all thermal power plants. This GHG intensity is directly depend on the efficiency of power plants. The estimated intensities are comparable with the equivalent data for developed countries. For instance, in 2004 GHG intensity for electricity generation sector in Canada for different fuels was as follows: Coal 1010, refined petroleum products 640, and natural gas 523 gCO2eq/kWh. However the difference for overall GHG intensity in whole electricity generation sector is much higher: Canada 222 vs. Iran 610gCO2eq/kWh. The reason is that in Canada a considerable portion of electricity is generated by hydro-electric and nuclear power plants in which they do not emit significant amount of GHG emissions. The average GHG intensity in electricity generation sector in Iran between 1995 and 2005 was experienced 13% reduction. While in Canada during the same period there was 21% increase. However, the results demonstrate that still there are great potentials for GHG emissions reduction in Iran’s electricity generation sector.

Keywords:

Greenhouse Gas emissions , GHG , Intensity , Iran’s electricity generation sector , IPCC