Evaluation Of The Sustainability Of Thermal Power Eco-industrial Parks Based On Emergy And Exergy Theory

With China's rapid economic development, energy consumption continues to rise, so some areas have electricity shortage. Thus, lots of thermal power plants are being built. Although it eases the power shortage situation, it brings serious problems about resources, energy and the environment. These issues have led the community to concern about the sustainability of the thermal power eco-industrial parks. Therefore, it is important to establish series index to evaluate the sustainability. In this paper, we use emergy and exergy analysis to evaluate the sustainability and stability of the thermal power eco-industrial parks.(1) Sustainable development level of thermal power eco-industrial parks are analyzed based on emergy theory. On the basis of emergy research at home and abroad, synthesized emergy index for thermal power eco-industrial parks are presented, including emergy sources and sustainable development indices. Three thermal power plants are analyzed based on the above emergy index. The results show that, the index can exactly reflect the degree of system development and be used to guide direction of system improvement.(2) Resource and energy utilization levels of the thermal power eco-industrial parks are studied based on exergy theory. The thermodynamic characteristics of system resource and energy use are studied by analyzing material and energy flows in the system. The exergy efficiencies of the whole system are analyzed and compared. The results show that, after adopting the material and energy recycling industrial chain, external exergy loss of the system decreases. However, internal exergy loss occupies much more of the total loss, which can only be reduced by the optimization of production processes.(3) This paper attempts to combine the characteristics of emergy and exergy analysis in order to establish an exergy/emergy indicator to amend the system yield ratio, while introducing emergy waste ratio and economic indicators to calculate the economic, environmental and social benefits of thermal power plants. In view of the advantages and disadvantages of the two analysis methods, a series of synthesized evaluation indices are presented according to the characteristics of thermal power eco-industrial parks that emergy is used to measure system input and exergy to measure the output. The indices are applied to three thermal power eco-industrial parks. The results show that the exergy/emergy ratio can effectively evaluate the sustainability of main production systems in the thermal power eco-industrial parks. (4) This paper attempts to combine the characteristics of emergy and exergy analysis, and to establish the ratio of emergy input and exergy output index which is called system transformity in order to evaluate the stability of two thermal power plants.This paper combines the emergy and exergy analysis to evaluate the sustainability of power industrial and the stability of industrial ecosystem. It provides a theoretical basis for the system optimization and guiding the planning and construction of thermal power eco-industrial parks.