Assessment of environmental impacts of energy scenarios using the πESA platform

Abstract

The πESA service developed within the Energy Sector domain grid of the PLGrid Plus project with its main element – a full air quality modelling system Polyphemus – was used to analyse changes in ambient concentration and deposition of pollutants for four energy scenarios. The simulations of atmospheric transport of pollutants were run for a domain centered around Poland with a horizontal resolution of 0.25º. Changes in annual concentrations and depositions of SO2, NOx, PMs for different years as well as energy scenarios were presented. The scenarios were compared as regards to the total deposition of sulphur in the modelling domain. A grid cell, in which the highest hourly concentration of a given pollutant occurred during a year, could be identified. The results show that due to the improvement of emission controls in large combustion plants, which is required to fulfill future EU regulations, they will have much lower negative impact on the environment. The study has shown that establishing a hard link between Polyphemus and TIMES energy model makes it possible to take into account environmental dimension in decisions making for energy policy.