Environmental evaluation of electricity generation from landfill gas by using LEAP and IPCC model: a case study of Karachi

In this paper, an operational optimization model is introduced which analyzes electricity generation and its environmental effects in Karachi metropolitan by LEAP model with two different scenarios: business-as-usual and sustainable waste management (SWM). The base and final year planning of this work are 2015 and 2050 respectively. Two different models of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and LEAP are integrated to estimate the methane flow rate and Karachi energy for non-energy emissions respectively. The GE10 Gas turbine is selected to estimate the electricity production of the landfill gas (LFG) plants. Moreover, engineering equation solver (EES) code is developed which is based on the methane flow rate and composition data gained from the IPCC default method in the SWM scenario. The results obtained from combining EES code and LEAP model demonstrates that the LFG plants can generate upto 0.4 GWh electric powers that is 1.3% of total demand in 2015. Furthermore, it will grow up to 0.8 GWh which is 1.7% of total electricity demand in 2050. However, the utilization of LFG plants escalates the cost of electricity generation but the accumulated difference of 50 years global warming intensity in planned scenarios will be upto 80.1 Mt CO2 equivalents from 2015 to 2050.