LCA4DHC - A Life Cycle Assessment data-driven tool for the evaluation of District Heating and Cooling networks

LCA4DHC is a data-driven Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool designed to support the environmental evaluation of District Heating and Cooling (DHC) networks. The tool aims to: Evaluate the environmental impacts of heating and cooling supplied by DHC networks from a life cycle perspective Ensure compliance with EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, version 4) requirements Support standardized and automated LCA calculations according to EN 15804 + A2 and EN 50693 Enable assessments per technology and per life cycle module (from A to D) - from-cradle-to-cradle Integrate primary data from network operators with secondary data from recognized LCA databases Provide a modular, transparent, and reproducible computational framework Facilitate scenario analysis and system optimization through rapid recalculations The entire computational structure was automatically reconstructed using the Brightway 2.5 framework