Life Cycle Analysis of Distributed Energy System Projects' Energy Consumption and GHG Emission - A Case of Beer Brewery Auxiliary Power Supply in China

In this paper, we used Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) method to evaluate the energy consumption and GHG emission of Distributed Energy System projects. We studied the China Resources Snow Breweries Natural Gas Distributed Energy System project, and designed another 5 cases with different energy pathways to compare their energy consumption and emission performance. The result shows the All Natural Gas project saves 8% energy and reduces 38% GHG emission compared with tradition project using coal and grid electricity. Although renewable energy projects' emission reduction effect is not as significant as that of All Natural Gas project, we found renewable energy projects have the potential to develop in the future. We concluded that policy makers should support the development of gas based distributed energy system projects and further research should be made to shed light on corporate's decision making. (C) 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.