(189o) Evaluation of Carbon Monetization in Power Systems for Flaring Mitigation

One of the mayor problems that contributes to climate change is gas flaring. Flares are open flames used for disposing of waste gases during normal and abnormal operations as safety devices. The World Bank Group has a leadership role in the initiative for gas flaring reduction through the global gas flaring reduction partnership (GGFR), and some legislations have been taken to promote the minimization of emissions using economic incentives and penalties (monetization). Numerous projects have taken into account monetization to improve the economic feasibility of them; nevertheless, monetization of greenhouse gas emissions may not be the best way to mitigate environmental impact. This work aims to study the effect of monetization of emissions versus a multi-objective strategy when industrial flare streams are used as supplementary fuel in a cogeneration system to reduce fresh fuel consumption and at the same time to satisfy energy requirements. An optimization approach is developed to determine the optimal size of the main equipment of the cogeneration system while the profit is maximized and greenhouse gas emissions are minimized. There is presented a case study that represents an industrial complex with several flares to show the evaluation of three different scenarios; the first one looks for stimulate the use of flares through economic incentives by the reduction of emissions, the second one seeks to penalize the generation of CO₂ in order to do attractive the utilization of waste resources like flare streams. Finally, the third scenario proposes the creation of a multi-objective function that pursues to maximize the profit and minimize the emission simultaneously. The results shows that the monetization of emissions is not necessary the best method to incentive the investment in alternative to reduce emission by industries. It affects directly the economy of new projects; notwithstanding, it does not affect in the same proportion the quantity of emissions generated. On the other hand, when the multi-objective strategy is used, economic and environmental benefits are obtained simultaneously.