Design of framework to estimate job co-benefits of renewable energy technologies using life cycle assessment | |
| Author | Goteti, Manisha |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.ET-13-25 |
| Subject(s) | Renewable energy Renewable energy sources--Technological innovations Life cycle assessment (LCA) |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering in Energy |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | Renewable energy technologies provide benefits through reduction of GHG emissions. They also provide various others benefits ( co - benefits ) such as job creation, health improvement , energy security and so on. The estimation of these co - benefits can help us in decision criteria in selection of RET options that offer greater economic benefit; identifying opportunities to use RE in other planning process; support to build RE policies and programs. Hence it is important to estimate co - benefits. Job co - benefits have been mostly been estimated as compared to other co - benefits. Since there is no systematic procedure to estimate job co - benefits , a framework w as designed using LCA analysis to estimate job co - benefits at every phase of the RET s life. LCA studies estimate the GHG emissions at every stage of the life cycle of any product. Similar to which the framework was also designed to estimate the jobs at every phase of the RETs life cycle. The phases were defined through input to the phase, activities t hat occur within a phase and output of the phase. The phases of the RET life were divided as raw material extraction/ processing phase, manufacturing phase, construction phase, operation and maintenance phase and finally decommissioning. These phases were defined in such way that it was generic to all the RETs. The next step after phase definition was to estimate jobs at each phase. For which levels were defined for each phase. Each level says how much percentage of the jobs are confined to that particular phase. These levels could be divided relative to GHG emissions, investment for each phase or even cost allocated for every phase. Due to the difficulty in imparting percentage of each level, the levels were divided based on the type of the jobs, which are direct job which come under level 1, indirect jobs come under level 2 and induced jobs which come under level 3. Different steps were designed for estimating direct and indirect jobs. Once the framework was designed in terms of phases and levels, the next step was to apply to estimate job co - benefits of RETs. The framework design was applied to OECD countries and Thailand for solar PV and wind energy technologies. Only the direct jobs have been estimated. The data was collected by following the steps designed to estimate direct jobs in the framework for every phase . The results showed that as the investment increased, the percentage of population employed in wind sector also increased. In case of solar PV the results showed that as the range of installed MW increased the jobs in the manufacturing phase decreased and construction phase increased. The results could not be compared consistently between different OECD countries. The number of jobs created per MW in the OECD countries for manufacturing phase construction phase and O and M phase are: 0.8 to 10; 0.5 to 15.5 and 0.1 to 0.4 respectively . For solar PV the number of jobs/ MW created in manufacturing phase construction phase and O and M phase are: 4 to 46; 5 to 32; 0.4 to 1 respectively. The total jobs/M W in OECD countries for all the phases for wind energy is: 1.4 to 25.9jobs/MW and for solar PV systems is 9.4 to 79jobs/MW. Hence it could be noted that solar PV creates more jobs/MW compared to wind energy. The manufacturing phase has the highest jobs in OECD counties followed by construction phase and then operation and maintenance. For Thailand no data was available to compare. Hence it was understood that there is a need for Thailand to develop several organizations such as AWEA, EWEA and join as a member of IEA. This would help Thailand to collect data required to estimate job co - benefit. |
| Year | 2013 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Energy and Climate Change (Former title: Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Change (DEECC)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Energy Technology (ET) |
| Chairperson(s) | Kumar, Sivanappan; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Marpaung, Charles O.P.;Dhakal, Shobhakar; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Asian Institute of Technology Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2013 |