International Journal of Environmental Engineering and Development
E-ISSN: 2945-1159
Volume 2, 2024
Method for Calculating the Uncertainty range of Avoided Primary Energy Consumption and Environmental Impact applied to Data Analysis Software Services and Solar Electricity
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Abstract: The absolute and avoided primary energy consumption (PEC) of Software (SW) services is getting more attention. However, there is no commonly agreed bottom-up methodology for calculation of the total PEC of SW services. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a common denominator for most existing methodologies. The purpose is to test a new simplified methodology which includes the uncertainty and sensitivity. The new methodology is applied to two illustrative cases: data analysis SW and electricity production. The baseline results for data analysis SW show that the uncertainty will be quite high at around 30% and the most sensitive parameters are the production of electricity, the amount of data transfer and the production of the end-user device. Moreover - the data bytes transferred from the end-user device per iteration, the PEC per byte data transfer and the PEC of the production of the end-user device used to access the SW - contribute most to the total uncertainty. Regarding solar electricity replaced by a proportionate electricity mix, the avoided carbon emissions in China from 2021 to 2023 were 80±36 million tonnes. Intermediate suppliers to the solar electricity production systems can claim to have contributed to the avoided emissions according to their contribution ratio.
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Keywords: avoided impact, data analysis, environmental impact, solar electricity, software, uncertainty, life cycle assessment
Pages: 283-289
DOI: 10.37394/232033.2024.2.25