JustEco: Visualizing Emissions and Cost

Aker Solutions has launched its Climate Action Plan to embed sustainability into operations. The plan has four core focus areas:

• Reduce own emissions (scope one and two)
• Unite the supply chain to reduce scope three emissions
• Strengthen low-carbon solution
• Leverage data insight to take action

We recognize that to accelerate the energy transition, it will be essential for the industry to overcome technical barriers and develop solutions. We aim to be a driver in this, investing in and developing new technologies and approaches to prioritize sustainability and ensure we meet global net zero targets.

Overview

JustEco is a digital tool developed by Aker Solutions to help businesses better understand their emissions, leading to more effective decision making.

It creates emissions and cost comparisions across all phases from concept to late life, enabling users to visualize lifecycle cost and environmental footprint related to operational phase.

The graphical reports from JustEco provide the results in a user friendly, understandable format so businesses can evaluate technology options during design, compare concepts like difference in power supply (electrification versus gas turbine), and select a vendor based on equipment emissions and costs.

Challenge

The global trend towards lowering carbon emissions is shaping the need to measure emissions, so they can be effectively managed. Regulatory and societal pressure is compounding this need as well as the rising carbon taxes imposed on energy users.

Having a digital tool for performing emission and cost analysis is essential to companies at every stage of their business decision making:

• To evaluate different technology options during engineering design including emissions, carbon taxes and total cost of ownership
• To perform concept studies evaluating different options for energy transition (e.g., electrifying a system) and making holistic decisions based on emissions, energy optimisation, and economics
• To analyze the offerings of different vendors in terms of efficiency, emissions, and cost (including carbon taxes) when purchasing new equipment for their plant

Approach

Aker Solutions’ digital tool JustEco is used to perform emission and cost comparisons throughout all phases from concept, FEED, detail design and modifications, to operations and late life. The idea for the tool came out of a hackathon for Young Solutioneers, a global employee network for young professionals in Aker Solutions.

The quality of source data is critical to obtain maximum value from the JustEco tool. This includes equipment data from vendors, process data from the facility, and regulatory data. Economic factors are also vital, and JustEco includes carbon taxes and costs of energy as input parameters.

Aker Solutions walks through the process step by step with clients. JustEco can also be used in an iterative process to evaluate alternatives. This allows clients to develop new scenarios based on the previous results or add more detail for further analysis.

Outcome

Since launch, JustEco has identified potential CO2 reduction of over 200,000 metric tons per year across multiple projects and studies. Several projects have included the utilization of JustEco as part of their sustainability strategy. As an example, the Modification Alliance Project together with Aker BP has included the implementation of JustEco on their target board as part of their strategic priorities to deliver sustainable solutions. In addition, the projects in the Fixed Facilities Alliance with Aker BP, are planning to utilize the visualization capacity embedded in the JustEco tool, in order to manage and select energy efficient solutions and/or technologies.

JustEco produces reports with graphical representation of the results. As can be seen in the figure below, trends show the lifecycle cost for each option making it clear which one offers the best return on investment. At the same time, the emissions data for each option shows which solution will deliver the best environmental performance. A summary table highlights the key parameters showing annual and lifetime costs savings as well as emissions savings.

The report can be structured for equipment comparisons, as in this example. There are also options for comparing concepts like illustrating the differences between electrification and gas supply on a specific installation. A valuable component of the JustEco tool is the ability to perform sensitivity studies so that companies can evaluate different scenarios, such as changes in energy and emission cost over time.

JustEco dashboard illustration