Environmental impact assessment of decentralized power generation based on heavy fuel oil in Santa Clara City, Cuba

Power generation is one of the most polluting activities in many countries due to large emissions of pollutants from combustion cycles. In Cuba, fossil fuels represent some 96% of the fuel mixture for power generation, fuel used in Decentralized Power Stations (DPSs) represents about 26% of this fraction (1 166 thousand toe) [1]. By DPSs Cuba has attempted to increase energy efficiency and to reduce the vulnerability on climate events. But potential external effects, e.g. health impact, due to polluting gases emissions were shyly considered in decision making. Some DPSs are sited nearby densely populated areas, and 70% of the fuel they use is heavy fuel oil (HFO). This paper presents an analysis of the external effects of two HFO fueled stations sited in Santa Clara City. These stations have a similar technology, with an installed capacity of 20MW each one. An Integrated Assessment of Energy Supply (IAES), based on the state of the art in engineering, dispersion models, air quality and epidemiology was implemented. This included a perturbation analysis to reach better scenarios at low investment. Especial attention is paid to impacts on human health. The baseline and two other scenarios were studied. It was calculated that station northwest causes the highest local impact in terms of years of life potentially lost due to incremental concentration of air pollutants. Largest CO2 emitter is station southeast, covering an effective energy demand 1.8 times higher than northwest station. But its local impact is lower because is sited where the population density downwind is considerably lower. It was calculated an impacts reduction potential of about 20% and 9% for stations northwest and southwest respectively.