Jørgensen, S.L. & Møller, F. 2011: Socio economic analysis of environmental optimisation of natural gas fired engines. National Environmental Research institute, Aarhus University. 20 pp. – Research Notes from NERI No. 263.
This report assess the economic consequences of different CHP-engine (Combined Heat and Power production) settings based on results found in Kvist et al. (2010), which also contains the conclusions of this report. The purpose of changing engine setting is to obtain lower levels of NOx emissions. The economic analysis is divided into a budget economic analysis and a welfare economic analysis of the effects of changing the gas engine settings. Furthermore, the welfare economic effects of geographical location of the gas engine are assessed. The analysis assumes that the total electricity and heat production from engines and boilers will be unchanged. That is, if changed engine settings cause a lower heat production on engines heat production on boilers will be increased.
The budget economic analysis shows that in general there is a trade off between NOx emissions and economic costs. Reduction of NOx emissions leads in most cases to the higher economic cost. Only for one engine setting a decrease in NOx emissions results in lower economic costs. This is due to the fact that in this case there will be produced more heat on engines, which means that cost of heat production on boilers can be reduced.
The welfare economic analysis also takes the derived effects of changing the engine settings into account. That is, also the value of emission changes is included in the analysis. Over and above the consequences for NOx emissions changed engine settings also have consequences for other air emissions that might have health effects and changed engine settings also have climate gas effects. The welfare economic analysis.
Full report i pdf-format (2,07 MB)
