Regioinvent is a Python package for automatically regionalizing the ecoinvent database using trade data. Copies of
ecoinvent processes are created and key inputs such as electricity, heat and municipal solid waste are adapted to the
context of the country for which regionalization is being carried out. Elementary flows are also regionalized (water,
land and acidification/eutrophication). To decide for which regions to create a regionalized copy of an ecoinvent process,
export data from the UN COMTRADE database is being used.
Once these regionalized processes are available, consumption markets are also created based this time on the import data
of the UN COMTRADE database and the domestic production levels derived from the EXIOBASE GMRIO database. These consumption
markets are then reconnected to any regionalized process to deepen the regionalization of ecoinvent.
Take the process of production of 1-butanol in Europe. It uses the European markets for electricity, medium voltage and for heat. It also purchases propylene from the European market:
Once regionalized through Regioinvent, say for production in Belgium, the process now uses electricity and heat mixes adapted to the Belgian context. It also uses the consumption market of propylene specific to Belgium. Finally, the elementary flows are also regionalized to the Belgian context.
To get started you can git clone this repository or simply download it.
You will need a few things to get started:
- Have an ecoinvent license (obviously)
- Download the UN COMTRADE database that was already extracted. Make sure to take the version that was "treated". You can download it from here
- Install
brightway2and have a brightway2 project with ecoinvent3.9.1 cut-off
Note that regioinvent currently only supports the ecoinvent 3.9.1 cut-off version and operates solely on brightway2 (NOT brightway2.5).
You can then follow the steps presented in the demo.ipynb Jupyter notebook.
Required python version: 3.11
Once the regionalized version of ecoinvent is created, you can perform your LCAs either through brightway2 or its GUI
activity-browser.
There are currently no support for other LCA software, as SimaPro and openLCA are not able to
support such a massive database.
incoming through a scientific article
Contact maxime.agez@polymtl.ca