Authors
Soehardinata, Ruth; Nugroho, Rizqi; Tiogana, Vincent; Hanafi, Jessica; Jobiliong, Eric
Abstract
Indonesia had over 126 million motorized road vehicles in 2018 that majorly runs with fossil-based fuels that might cause negative impacts to the environment. Battery electric vehicle (BEV) is seen as one of the promising alternative vehicle technologies that can potentially reduce these environmental impacts. Nonetheless, the source of electricity used for the BEV in Indonesia mainly comes from coal-fired power plants, which may affect the environmental performance of BEV. This study was conducted to compare the environmental performance of BEV and the conventional internal combustion engine vehicle (ICEV) in Indonesia by performing a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA). A passenger car is chosen for the study where the system boundary was cradle-to-grave, which includes the production, usage, and end-of-life stage for each vehicle. The functional unit was an average passenger car driven in Indonesia within one life cycle, with the assumption of milleage consumption of 150.000 km. Data is mainly gathered from existing literature, models, and databases, such as the GREET model and Ecoinvent database. At the end-of-life of the vehicles, components are usually recycled, where possible. Meanwhile, the used battery is dumped into landfills following common practices in Indonesia. The life cycle impact were assessed based on five impact categories, i.e. Global warming potential (GWP), human toxicity potential (HTP), ozone depletion potential (ODP), abiotic depletion potential (ADP), and acidification potential (AP), using relevant methods. The result shows that Batter Electric Vehicles runs with average electricity mix in Indonesia has higher GWP, HTP, ADP, and AP than ICE Vehicles. This depicts that applying BEV in Indonesia might not be a suitable solution to reduce the environmental impact given the current electricity mix in Indonesia, despite the preferences of BEV in other countries.