Decarbonization is an important measure in the fight against climate change. The aim is to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases, which are primarily caused by the use of fossil fuels. Different measures are possible for industry, depending on the type of process and its boundary conditions. In order to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of decarbonization measures, it is necessary to consider their mostly complex effects in production as well as in the supply and disposal processes and to quantify the respective emissions.

At the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences, a methodology was developed in a research project as part of the federal model project "Unternehmen Revier", which makes it possible to determine the greenhouse gas emissions of the production process under investigation as realistically as possible. Possible technical measures to reduce emissions are determined on the basis of the current process status. The process is then modeled in terms of energy technology in its current state and with the selected measures. The simulation results serve as the basis for the downstream environmental analysis, in which the greenhouse gas emissions are calculated. The results are compared with each other and provided as a basis for decision-making for the company. The methodology described was implemented in the digital analysis tool "Andema" (analysis of decarbonization measures).

Further development of the tool for various industrial processes and other environmental impacts is planned. The tool is to be used by the Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences and, in the future, by external engineering service providers to support small and medium-sized regional companies in decarbonizing their production processes.

This article first appeared in issue 20 of Lausitz Magazin and has been published here with the kind permission of the publisher, zwei helden GmbH.