How to report electricity generated on-site

Building & Infrastructure LCA
,
1

Several clients asked me how to correctly input electricity generated on-site by e.g. a PV during the past week. I want to reshare this here as general guidance.

First, please note the software understands all inputs on the electricity consumption query page per year (i.e. they will be multiplied with the calculation period).

Second, there are two distinct cases, which require different handling.

If the demand is higher than the production on-site:

  • Subtract the electricity generated on-site from the demand
  • Input the result of this equation to the section called “Electricity consumption ”. This is the electricity that will need to be bought in addition to the generated electricity.
  • Leave the exported energy field empty (everything produced is used on-site)

If the demand is lower than the production on-site:

  • Leave the section called “Electricity consumption ” empty
  • Subtract the electricity generated on-site from the demand
  • Input the result of this equation to the section called “Exported energy”

I also recommend adding comments as they can help with documentation.

I hope this is helpful to some of you. You can find additional information here. If you have any further questions to this, please dont hesitate to post them here.

2 Likes
2

Shouldn’t this be the other way around…? If the demand is lower than the energy production on-site you can export some of the surplus. If the energy demand is higher than the production on-site you need to buy some more energy from elsewhere…

1 Like
3

Hi Dominika,

You’re totally right, thanks for letting us know. We’ll modify the post.
Apologies for any inconvenience.

1 Like
4

Hi!

As we follow-up to this post I’d like to raise a third situation, where:

  • the company is producing on-site electricity, but as it has no energy storage solution it is selling the surplus to the grid. Basically the production is larger than on-site consumption.
  • The company is purchasing additional grid electricity due to the fact that it is unable to store on-site produced energy.

As the inputs should demostrate the actual material and energy flows for the reporting period, my understanding is that the company will report the actual mix of used energy. That is, the proportion of on-site used as well as additionally purchased energy. And it can report the surplus as exported energy. Thus this represents the actual reality.

Does this seem logical here?
Thanks!