Between green hills and green bills: Unveiling the green shades of sustainability and burden shifting through multi-objective optimization in Swiss energy system planning.

Autor: Schnidrig J; CIRAIG, Institute for Sustainable Energy, University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland, Rue de l'Industrie 23, Sion, 1950, Valais, Switzerland; Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering group, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Rue de l'Industrie 17, Sion, 1950, Valais, Switzerland. Electronic address: jonas.schnidrig@hevs.ch., Souttre M; Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering group, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Rue de l'Industrie 17, Sion, 1950, Valais, Switzerland; CIRAIG, École Polytechnique de Montreal, 3333 Queen Mary Rd, Montréal, H3V 1A2, Québec, Canada., Chuat A; CIRAIG, Institute for Sustainable Energy, University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland, Rue de l'Industrie 23, Sion, 1950, Valais, Switzerland; Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering group, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Rue de l'Industrie 17, Sion, 1950, Valais, Switzerland., Maréchal F; Industrial Process and Energy Systems Engineering group, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Rue de l'Industrie 17, Sion, 1950, Valais, Switzerland., Margni M; CIRAIG, Institute for Sustainable Energy, University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland, Rue de l'Industrie 23, Sion, 1950, Valais, Switzerland; CIRAIG, École Polytechnique de Montreal, 3333 Queen Mary Rd, Montréal, H3V 1A2, Québec, Canada.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Journal of environmental management [J Environ Manage] 2024 Oct 09; Vol. 370, pp. 122537. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Oct 09.
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2024.122537
Abstrakt: The Paris Agreement is the first-ever universally accepted and legally binding agreement on global climate change. It is a bridge between today's and climate-neutrality policies and strategies before the end of the century. Critical to this endeavor is energy system modeling, which, while adept at devising cost-effective carbon-neutral strategies, often overlooks the broader environmental and social implications. This study introduces an innovative methodology that integrates life-cycle impact assessment indicators into energy system modeling, enabling a comprehensive assessment of both economic and environmental outcomes. Focusing on Switzerland's energy system as a case study, the model reveals that optimizing key environomic indicators can lead to significant economic advantages, with system costs potentially decreasing by 15% to 47% by minimizing potential impacts from the current system still operating with fossil technologies to an alternative only relying on renewable and where the impact are mainly related to the construction of the infrastructure. However, a system optimized solely for economic efficiency, despite achieving 63% reduction in carbon footprint compared to 2020, shows a potential risk of burden shift to other environmental issues. The adoption of multi-objective optimization in this approach nuances the exploration of the complex interplay between environomic objectives and technological choices. The results illuminate pathways towards more holistically optimized energy systems, effectively addressing trade-offs across environmental problems and enhancing societal acceptance of the solutions to this century's defining challenge.
Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Jonas Schnidrig reports financial support was provided by Innosuisse Swiss Innovation Agency. Arthur Chuat reports financial support was provided by Innosuisse Swiss Innovation Agency. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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